Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Advent, 2041

Gavin told Tina with all the finality of a cop reading a perp their rights:  "We’re looking for Furbies only.”

“Right!”

“Just the classic ones. Not the weird ones that connect to the internet. Everything connects to the fuckin' internet…."

"…Maybe a DDR game, too?” Tina held up the dancing pad hopefully but Gavin was not in the mood.

“I’m still trying to move the last set you made me get last year."

“Come on, this’ll totally sell in your shop. The early 2000s are having a moment!"

"Look, it’s broken!"

"Oh, you can fix these things in your sleep—" 

"Fine. whatever!" Gavin paid for the cracked old plastic before Tina could bother him further. Looked like he made the seller's day. He shoved the pad into his backpack, refusing to feel the least bit of holiday spirit with Scrooge-like conviction. "Furbies," he said as he trudged on. "Nothing else."

"Dude, what crawled up your ass and died? You love flea market day!"

"...I don’t wanna talk about it." He shuffled along with the crowd as it moved from booth to booth likea hoard of antique-loving zombies. Sellers hawked anything from old refrigerators to vintage clothes to Christmas decor made out of bottlecaps. God, it was almost Christmas already. Time flew when you were forced into early retirement.

Tina just stared at him, and eventually Gavin cracked.

"Eli called yesterday."

"...Ah. Always forget why you’re in a bad mood around the holidays. Oh well, we’ll find you a box of floppy discs to sell and you’ll be—"

"He literally said I was stuck in the past! It’s his fault I’m where I am, you know!" 

"Come on, you quit your job and get to screw around with pre-android electronics all day. You used to do that with your weekends instead of going out anyway. You’re living the dream!”

“Living off your hobby is a lot worse than it sounds.”

“Hey, you could have stayed a detective."

"Yeah, glorified android babysitter? They don’t even let humans out of the office anymore. Pass. But Eli, he acts like I’m—I’m—the garbage man, or somethin’. People buy my shit! I sold a refurbished iPod for nine hundred bucks yesterday!”

"You’re a friend to hipsters and history buffs everywhere," Tina agreed, examining a virtual makeup mirror.

"Yeah--yeah, but he just starts going on about all the things his androids have done for society, the march of progress... I dunno, I had to say something."

Tina made a duck face in the mirror and considered her reflection, which now wore blue lipstick. "So what’d you call him?"

"Nothing! I just...told him that at least I have a life. I’m not just some lonely shut-in like him."

"Uh. You are a lonely shut-in?” She turned the mirror so now Gavin had the lipstick. “Oh, unless…"

Gavin rolled his eyes as he shoved the mirror aside. "He just would not get off my ass—I had to say something! Now he…” Gavin lowered his voice to a grumble. “…Now he wants me to bring my significant other to his big stupid Christmas party."

"Oof. Lying to your cousin about your relationship status. Who’s the sad one here?”

“Yeah, yeah….”

"Just tell him you’re sick or something,” Tina nudged him with her elbow. “Lets go this way, I think I saw some neon fur—"

“Dude, I’m not gonna miss it,” Gavin struggled to follow her in the crowd, “This is the one time I get to eat steak this year!"

"Did you come to the flea market to pick someone up? Is that why we’re here right now?”

"I-I told you, we’re here for Furbies…" 

“Well, I’m sure as hell not going with you.”

...Okay, so Gavin had been hoping for that. Fuck. “Why not?”

“He gives me the creeps!”

"He’s not that bad.” Gavin pushed his way to her side. “I’ll buy you anything you want."

"No way. Put an ad out if you’re desperate."

"I can’t put an ad out, Eli reads the internet!”

“What, the whole thing?”

“Yes, the whole thing! Every day! This is reason number one why I hate the internet—"

"…Okay, what are we calling him? The little guy.”

That came from an unfamiliar voice, but it carried over the crowd and yes, Gavin was a little sensitive about his height. He spun around, bristled like a cat. The only things behind him, however, were four old-model androids propped up against an antique headboard in one of the booths. You definitely didn’t see a lot of androids at the flea market, even beat-up ones like these. They were all missing parts and covered in dust and crud, but they were all powered on, and staring right at him.

“Oh, boy.” The android that spoke was missing half his freckled face (or was that just more dirt?) and both his legs, but he leaned on his companions more like a hoodlum vandal than barely-functional merchandise. “So many options…”

“Pinocchio: the later years,” the android with her hair in a braid suggested. The tall android beside her snorted.

“No, no,” the blond android said. “I got it: ’I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way!’”

Gavin groaned as the androids erupted into giggles. Just what he needed: a bunch of broken deviants heckling him. “Fuckin’ androids.” He walked faster— except in the crowded flea market there wasn’t anywhere to go.

"Hey look! They have Furbies!" Tina pointed into the android-infested booth.

“Hey, short king!” the android with the braid shouted.

"Let’s try another booth," Gavin muttered.

“Oh, will you get over yourself already?” Tina sighed. “Androids aren’t so bad. You’re lucky, deviants never want to read me…”

The blonde took one look at Tina’s uniform pants and said, "Furby fuzz."

“Ha! Guilty as charged! Come on, you big lug,” Tina urged, pulling on Gavin’s arm. “I think I saw one of the blue ones…"

Tina ducked into the booth. Gavin winced but...damnit, the blue ones were rare. He avoided eye contact as he stepped inside. The booth was actually a treasure trove of stuff for his store, dirt cheap too except for the blue Furby of course. 

"Look, the furs all matted," Gavin said, trying to stuff a portable record player and a friendship lamp under his arm. "I’ll give you a hundred for it."

"Never sniff a food processor,” the freckled android whispered to the tall android, making them giggle all over again. Gavin did not touch the scar on his nose.

"Ignore them," the owner said. "They’re just deviants. Personalities are fried. Great for attracting customers, though!”

“Cute!” Tina said.

“Annoying,” Gavin said. “A hundred, or what?”

“Can’t take less than one twenty-five,” the owner said.

“Hey, this pink one’s in better shape,” Tina offered, waving the Furby hopefully under Gavin’s nose.

“…I’ll get it for you if you go to the Christmas party with me?”

Tina dropped it immediately.

“Fine. Just the blue one. One twenty-five.” He struggled to reach his money with his arms laden. “Come on, Tina, the party’s only for a couple hours…”

“If Eli’s not impressed with you, he’s not going to be impressed with me. I’m basically tech support at the DPD these days.”

“Yeah, but that’s still better than running your own business, he’d respect that—” Gavin tried to hide the Frozen II Blu-ray in his purchases but the androids saw that, too, and started loudly singing Into the Unknown. Freckles was actually pretty good. Aside from the hole in his head he had a cat-like face, his one green eye flashing when he tipped his head back. Well-sculpted body, too. Someone tried to actually make him look human instead of like a Ken doll.

“…Yeah,” Tina said, “I’m also not gonna be your beard.”

Gavin quickly looked away from the android, scratching his ear. “That’s a, uh, custom model?” he asked the owner, his tone completely 100% casual.

“Let’s call him, ‘Must be this tall to ride,’” the freckled android purred, and even winked somehow with only one eye. Bastard. 

“Sorry, sorry—” The owner paused in adding up his purchases to open another app on his phone and tap a few buttons. The androids instantly went silent. They seemed used to this and threw a few choice gestures his way. “Thank God CyberLife came up with the remote control app, right?—can you imagine the deviants rising up to kill all humans?...”

“I’ve seen the movies,” Gavin said. “So, what is he?”

“He says he’s an RK200 but that model never got released. It’s probably an error, given the state he’s in. He’s old, that’s for sure. The way his hands move…they don’t make ‘em like they used to!”

“Just go to the karaoke bar and find a date like a normal person,” Tina offered.

Gavin winced. Bar-hopping was something even a much younger, more experimental version of himself hated. A couple friends gathered around an old PS2—that was his idea of a good evening. He glanced back at the RK200. He’d be good at karaoke. Really good. Androids were good at everything—more perfect than even Elijah Kamski, and…

…And…

"…They for sale?"

“What?” the owner asked.

"What?” Tina asked.

The android’s smile disappeared like What?

“Nah, just display,” the owner said, “I can’t give ‘em away since CyberLife came out with the anti-deviant models. The app works on these guys just fine, but trust me, you’d be better off with the new models that can’t even go deviant in the first place, you know?...”

Gavin wasn’t really listening. He’d need to shop a few specialty pieces, sure, but the junkyard always had a few android parts no one bothered to recycle. A suit, maybe a pair of chunky glasses…. The android had to be pretty tall when he had legs, too. What, six-two, six-three? Gavin could give him a little height with the right legs. He imagined his cousin’s face contorting in shock when he saw six-foot-four-inches of toned muscle and pretty eyes walking into the Christmas party, his stammered attempts to look cool even as he stared in wonder, maybe even envy?...

“I’ll give you twenty for Freckles over there,” Gavin decided. He pulled another bill out of his pocket and held it out.

“You’re shitting me!” Tina crowed, like Christmas itself came early, “Are you serious right now?—”

The android shook his head and cut his hand across his throat, repeatedly.

The owner stammered, “I mean, if you want to waste your money….”

The android gestured to his companions, possibly trying to indicate they were a package deal, then pointed at the Furby, probably offended at the price difference between them.

“No one asked you, Freckles,” Gavin told the android, his tone quite gentlemanly before he glanced at the still-cackling Tina. “I’ll buy you the pink Furby if you shut the hell up and help me carry him to the car.”

Chapter Text

There were many reasons to hate androids. Thankfully, Gavin had Tina around to keep track of all the reasons for him while they wandered the city:

“…So, stuffing a body into your trunk made you look super shady,” Tina said as they pulled out of the flea market parking lot, her new pink Furby cooing on her lap. “I don’t care what kind of post-empathy society we live in. Not to mention that this just perpetuates the android economy, contributing to massive loss of jobs, exodus of our best and brightest to, like, Canada… and you hate the whole idea of personalities being patented and manufactured by companies. Like, I know Eli thinks you’re lame, but building a boyfriend in your garage when you could just go out and meet someone perfectly nice? That’s sad.”

“That’s the beauty of it.” Gavin gleefully beat on the steering wheel. “He won’t know it’s an android!”

Tina scrunched up her face. “How’s that?”

“The thing’s obviously custom! If I can get it fixed up—like, really fixed up nice, hide that LED in his head—no one’ll be the wiser!”

“…There’s no way you’re gonna fool him forever! Androids are good, but not that good.”

“Eh, it’s just for one night. I don’t want an android around any longer than I have to. Damn, if I can just  get him to act like a real human that’s actually dating me—Kamski will be speechless! What’s the point of all his money and success if it can’t buy him romantic bliss, right? I can lord this over him for months!”

He thought that covered all the reasons he hated androids, but no, Tina remembered more:

“It’s just kind of wasteful, you know?” she continued, as they searched through the bin of android parts at the junkyard. “You know how bad thirium mining is for the polar ice caps?”

“Ah!” Gavin raised a hand—not his hand, an android one. “But it’s used. I shift the environmental burden onto whatever idiot threw him away in the first place.”

“You paid more than CyberLife gives for recycling them. And you had to buy fresh thirium. Repair costs add up…”

“Okay, yeah, the models from the 30s are basically disposable—but I think this one’s like, late twenties. High quality parts—I mean, look at these seams, they’re gorgeous! I am giving him new life.”

“You give Walkmans and clap-on lamps new life. This is just wasting time and energy and money just to minorly bother your cousin.”

“Hey, if that antisocial freak will only be impressed by the best, then the best is what he shall receive. And fooled by his own creation!”  

With that, Gavin considered the matter settled. Tina had other ideas.

“So, then it’s just the deviant attitude you have to deal with,” Tina said, as Gavin finally rolled up in the back of Reed’s Records and Electronic Collectibles and cut the engine. “Remember the attitude? He was calling you names, too.”

“I can’t pull this off with a new android, T, they all look the damn same.”

“You don’t even like the nice androids. Deviants have pretty screwed up personality software. They bitch about everything.” Gavin hopped out of the car and opened the trunk, so Tina had to stick her head out the window to continue. “You tell him to make you a sandwich and he’ll dunk on anything you want to put on it!”

“Maybe.” Gavin grinned at her over the trunk. “But he’ll still make me a sandwich.” He started hefting the android, which was thankfully shut down, out of the trunk.

Tina rolled her eyes but got out of the car to help. “There has to be a reason why nobody’s tried this.”

“Who says they haven’t? Whatever, I have a horrible attitude, too. We’re gonna be good friends.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works…”

“Gavin?”

Gavin dropped the android back in the trunk and shoved the door shut as a squad car pulled up. “H-hey, Hank!” Gavin pulled his most kiss-ass smile until he saw the android sitting beside Hank in the front seat.

“Whatcha got there?” Hank asked as he android blinked owlishly beside him.

“Oh, just some—” He stuffed the android’s arm back in the trunk. “Android parts.” He glared at the android in Hank’s front seat. Seriously? Shotgun was where he got to sit! “Isn’t there a bar stool somewhere with your name on it?”

Hank just laughed. “Oh, I stopped living in the past a while ago, Reed.”

The android beside him smiled pleasantly. Gavin just barely managed to keep his own smile in place until the car disappeared around a corner.

Thankfully the workshop was the first room in the basement level, so Gavin didn’t have to lug the android very far. Tina found an old chair to prop the android up in, one Gavin didn’t mind getting gross with whatever crud it was dirty with. He sent Tina to fetch the necessary equipment for restoration and repair, then started a plan of attack. The android’s clothes were filthy rags—they’d have to go. He started to peel them back.

“You ever wonder why they make Ken dolls look like that?” Tina asked, idly. “I mean kind of like, vaguely-chiseled, non-threatening…”

…Gavin snatched his hands away. “He can, uh, clean himself up later.” Tina snorted and he glared at her. “Where’s all the cleaning stuff?”

“Oh, you’re on your own,” Tina said. “I just came in to wash my hands.”

“Aw, T, come on, don’t leave me with him—”

“Good luck with your new toy!”

…So Gavin ended up alone in his workshop after sundown, carefully plugging the android’s serial number into his phone to pair it. The serial number didn’t bring up any information about the android—probably too old to be included in the company’s many updates—but all the controls were there. Mute, standby, shut down. Plenty of space for text and voice commands that automatically backed up to the CyberLife secure servers every second or something, preventing any chance of command breakdown from even the most sophisticated AI. Supposedly military-grade securities. Probably all bullshit. He’d be lucky if this deviant didn’t try to murder him at least once.

Gavin swallowed hard, then reached over and touched the android’s LED. It was sticky from whatever shit covered the android to begin with. He had to wipe it off before the touchscreen registered his fingerprint. The android opened his eyes.

“Don’t move,” Gavin said immediately, watching his phone to make sure the command registered.

The android didn’t move. He just said, “…Is this another junk shop?”

“No one asked your opinion, asshole,” Gavin growled.

“It’s not you, just—I was custom-made so the whole shop thing is still a—” he sighed as he looked around, “—new, unpleasant experience.”

“Sucks to be you.”

His eyes finally fell on the zip ties around his chest. “You know I can’t move if you tell me not to. Not to mention the fact that I don’t have legs anymore.”

“Yeah, well, they told us the robots wouldn’t try to go rogue the first time, either.” Gavin sat down and started setting everything up—pliers, electrical solder, super glue, Q-Tips, baking soda…

“My warranty requires me to ask you this,” the android said, politely. “But, uh, what are you doing?”

“Calm down. I’m gonna fix you up.”

“In your junk shop?” he laughed. He had a nice laugh.

Gavin felt his ears burn. “It’s—not a junk shop! It’s antiques and collectibles.”

“Trust me,” he said, looking around, probably scanning everything, “This is junk.” He said it like he was actually trying to be helpful!

“Yeah, well, this purveyor of junk is the reason you’re gonna walk again.”

“How, exactly?”

“I don’t need a CyberLife repair kiosk to fix you.”

“We… haven’t been introduced,” the android said, suddenly all politeness.

“Well, you know what to call me,” Gavin said, unmoved. “Short king, right?”

The android grinned at the ceiling. “My apologies for that. May I have your name, please?”

“…You just call me Gavin.” The android had a soft timbre to his voice, and a slight lisp. He had a voice auto-tuned to give speeches and read audiobooks. Pure, distilled, refined—refinement. “Where’d they dig you up, a museum?—”

“A mansion, actually.”

Fucking seriously. No wonder people liked the new androids better. “Well, hate to tell you this, your highness, but you’re stuck with me. Lucky for you I fix old electronics for a living. So, you can forget your dreams of being adopted by some loving family that will restore you to original condition on HGTV, and be a little more grateful.”  

“It’s… very nice to meet you, Gavin. And I am grateful you are—” he glanced at the tools, “—Trying to fix me.”

“Unbelievable.” Gavin tried to focus on his phone, pulling up a few likely videos. As far as slightly sketch how-tos about repairing tech with planned obsolescence, you couldn’t get better than some random joe with a delightful name and questionable camera-work skills. He pulled up the first of Zlatko Andronikov’s videos, “JUNKYARD ANDROID UNBOXING,” and coaxed his phone to stand up with the same little kickstand he’d used since grade school.

“My name is Markus.”

“What? W-who cares—”

“My friends are named Josh, North, and Simon. If you can afford to drop a hundred dollars on a Furby, maybe you’d like to purchase them as well.”

“It’s a little late for the politeness algorithms, Marco.”

“…It’s Markus. And listen, if you’re really planning to fix me with internet videos and—and a turkey baster—”

“Don’t forget the duct tape.”

“Oh, my mistake—clearly I’m worrying over nothing.” He watched Gavin insert the turkey baster into the bottle of alcohol and squeeze the bulb. “Can I please be shut down for this?”

“Nope. You’re my diagnostic computer today. Tell me if I short something.”

Markus or whatever his name was started to protest before Gavin flushed the hole in his head with alcohol. The android hissed, but didn’t move, and Gavin started scrubbing with the toothbrush.

“Has that been in your mouth?”

“There,” Gavin grinned, “and a lot of other places since!...”

He soon discovered some corrosion, and so left the android with baking soda paste on his broken components for twenty-four hours to dry, followed by another flush of alcohol and scrub with the toothbrush, then the Q-Tips. Some major issues required more traditional solutions; the casing clips on androids were always one-use (CyberLife bastards) so Gavin had to secure the new chest plate in place with duct tape. Good thing the Christmas party did not require this guy to be shirtless.

“What color do you want?” Gavin asked, holding up a few rolls of tape.

“Green,” Markus replied.

Gavin nodded, and promptly used the red tape with tiny little reindeer on it, which he couldn’t ever use up. Markus laughed. This made Gavin think he was at least minorly cool, before the android launched into a history of Christmas and everything the holidays got wrong; probably attempting to annoy him. It did annoy him.

“…And so that’s why Christmas should really be in the spring, not the winter,” Markus continued. “Those legs aren’t compatible, by the way, they’re too long—"

“Look, I’m gonna need you to have a better attitude about this,” Gavin snapped. He’d already given up three nights of video games for this guy.

“I have a great attitude considering you’re turning me into Frankenstein’s monster—”

“For the love of God, just stop talking.”

 Markus did stop talking—and started making a horrible buzzer noise instead every time Gavin started to solder something like they were playing Operation.

“Shut. Your mouth.”

Markus smiled very charmingly (too charmingly) and finally shut his mouth. Of course, a few minutes later Gavin did cause a short in Markus’ leg that knocked over a priceless 4K TV, which Markus of course would have notified him about, if he could.

Next came the LED—a simple ring around the power button that when removed would (hopefully) cover with synthskin automatically.

“Why are you taking out my LED?”

“None of your business. Now, push!”

“I’m pushing!”

“You can do it, dummy, just breathe—”

“You have horrible bedside manner—”

“I’m trying to get you annoyed so you clench your jaw, numb nuts.”

“Oh, well, why didn’t you say so, just keep mouth-breathing right in my face!"

This kind of nonsense went on for two more days before Gavin slotted the final piece into place: a new eye component, the most expensive thing in Markus’ body even if the color wasn’t right. Apparently they didn’t make green eyes for androids anymore? And of course Markus noticed.

“It’ll do,” Gavin told him before he could protest too much. “The double vision will go away after a reboot.”

Markus closed his eyes. “Listen. You can do the right thing, here.”

Gavin stepped away to wash his hands. “What is that?”

“Let me go. You’ve spent days talking to me—you know I’m alive. This isn’t fair.” Gavin glanced over his shoulder to see the android clenching his jaw hard enough to make any LED pop right out. “I can get you your money back. Ten times your money back. But I need to get back to the androids I was with.” He opened his eyes and Gavin found himself arrested by his blue-green gaze. “Please let me go. Please.”

Gavin stood frozen as if hypnotized by a cobra. Then he jumped forward and pressed the spot where the LED used to be. The android went still and quiet as it shut down. Gavin pushed his hand through his hair. Fuck, deviants were dangerous. Like all that creepy shit the chuckleheads programmed Siri and Alexa to say, but on steroids.

He shivered and called it a day. The android could stay powered down until the Christmas party, for all he cared. Gavin didn’t need to run around after yet another electronic para-lifeform. He had more than enough Furbies for that, thank you. While he got ready for bed he enjoyed the peace attained by those who had their nice quiet boring life restored after something new and exciting.

Damn. Was it always this quiet around here?

Chapter Text

Gavin slept poorly that night, weirdly fearing his android was going to creep out of the workshop like Talking Tina from the Twilight Zone even more so now that he was switched off.

The next day, when not selling records to audiophiles and Atari game cartridges to afficionados, Gavin spent his free time buying shit for his new android. This was not his proudest moment and he decided not to tell Tina. He blamed sleep deprivation and the fact that he never actually looked at android accessories before. He never thought about android accessories before.

He returned to Reed’s Records with way too many bags and wound his way through the shop’s maze of overstuffed rooms. The android was still there, still—asleep or whatever. He hunted around in one of the bags for the new clothes—just some, like, grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt, it was in his defense nothing fancy—and set them on the table, then went to the bathroom. Fuck, the bathroom. He shoved a bunch of almost-empty hotel soaps into the trash and put up the soaps he bought—they were, unfortunately, very fancy. He found a towel with only a few holes in it and hid his own good towel under the sink. He wiped his toothbrush splatter off the mirror and put out the new toothbrush he bought.

He returned to Markus and turned him on before his brain could queue up the Greatest Hits of why this was all a terrible idea.

Or, he would have. Without the LED it was hard to tell where to push. “Fuck.” He hunted around for it, feeling along the android’s temple. Markus had good bone structure. Plastic structure?

He snatched his hands back and scrunched his eyes shut. “I am not a creep,” he told himself like an affirmation. He found a Q-Tip and poked around Markus’ temple with it until he found the button, then stepped away as soon as he pushed it. The android opened his eyes as calmly as if he just came back from a vacation in nirvana.

Then he looked around, saw the same room and the lack of other androids. He slowly pressed his hands to his face. “I’m gonna make your life a living hell,” he sighed.

Gavin laughed. Damn, it was hard not to like him.

It took the android a second to realize that Gavin had cut the zip ties around him. He peeked at Gavin with his now multicolored, scintillating gaze over his fingertips.

“U-uh.” Gavin dropped the pile of clothes on the gaming table. “Bathroom’s through there. Clean yourself up, or whatever. Get changed. Come find me when you’re done.”

He headed upstairs (without tripping, thank you) and wandered through the shop’s many rooms like a rat caught in a maze. Which was ridiculous and the android could probably hear him. He found a spinny office chair and sat spinning around while he waited, listening to it squeak. He heard the old pipes rattle when the water as the taps turned on. And stayed on. What the fuck did this guy think he was running, a hotel? He pounded on the floor over the bathroom and the water, a hundred dollars later, shut off. Gavin got up and paced around, tossed a haunted Kylo Ren helmet between his hands, then went to go count the money in the cash register until he heard footsteps on the stairway.

Gavin tried not to envision what the place looked like from the newcomer’s eyes—the rows of cassette tapes in an old card catalog cabinet, the armory of lightsabers, virtual mirrors taken from every defunct makeup shop in Michigan, displays of light-up shoes and talking action figures—and of course, stacks and stacks of records. What did he care what an android thought of his store? Sure, it could be organized a little better and the windows could use a cleaning but no one trusted a clean antique shop did they? The weird smell and creaky floorboards added charm. He heard the footsteps get closer and counted the money in the register even harder, so as to look properly unimpressed, and—

Okay, it wasn’t that Gavin didn’t notice how hot the android was, it just wasn’t. Cleaning all that gross crud off of him had helped, of course, and the clean, tight clothes. But he didn’t find the android attractive any more than a mannequin at the mall, even if his cheekbones were dusted with freckles that looked like bronze flecks and his hands were like a concert pianist’s. He did underestimate the effect a guy looking that and walking out of his bathroom, would have on his lonely shriveled heart. The sirens blaring in various parts of his body were immediate, loud, and not appreciated.

The android pointed back at the bathroom with his thumb. “Your showerhead was leaking, I tightened it for you.”

Gavin continued to stare. There was, apparently, a big difference between six-foot-one and six-foot-four. He should have gone for the smaller size leg compontent, which could not of course be admitted now.

“And the drain was clogged, so I cleaned that.” Markus paused. “Unless you didn’t want it cleaned?...”

“No, that’s—” Gavin pulled himself together. “That’s good. Good good good.”

“Good.” Markus cracked his knuckles, then opened his hands. “What am I doing here?”

“…Oh yeah. Uh. You’re my android now.”

“You clearly have no interest in owning an android.”

“Of course I do. I bought you clothes and a toothbrush and dog tags. I am officially a consumer of android accessories.” He dug said dog tags out of his pocket and tossed it over. “See? Put it on.”

Markus caught the dog tags out of the air, one hand, without looking (fucking androids), and put the chain over his head while hiding the tags under his shirt. Then he pulled them out again and squinted at them. “You sprung for the holographic ones,” he observed.

Gavin’s ears burned. “They’re cool. I guess you had gold-plated ones in your mansion, huh?”

Markus’ gaze flicked up, but Gavin held his ground and eventually the android dropped the tags back against his chest, though outside his shirt this time. “No one buys secondhand androids. What’s this really about?”

Okay, so…the moment of truth. He figured the android had to know some time. “I need to eat,” he said instead. “Hey—do you cook?”

“I can cook,” the android said slowly, “But I think you should tell me why you—”

“No, you have to listen to me, right? Martin—”

“—Markus—”

“Markus, cook me dinner. In fifteen minutes or less, no poison, it has to be healthy and delicious. Kitchen’s downstairs. Go! Go!”

Markus blinked at him for a moment. “There is so much wrong with that…” but he went downstairs again. He whacked his forehead on an overhead beam as he did so—apparently Gavin wasn’t the only one unused to Markus’ impressive height—and then he was gone. Gavin rubbed his hands together. Fifteen minutes, all to himself! Instead of standing over some box of mac n’ cheese or something. He was so excited he didn’t really do anything, just wandered around the shop. After fourteen minutes of trying to guess what the robot would make he dashed down to the card table he used as a kitchen table and waited. Markus was over the stove, looking good even in the act of obeying orders. He turned around after exactly fifteen minutes and set a bowl of mac n’ cheese in front of him. Gavin dug around it looking for additions. But it was just the stuff from the box.

“Dude, I could make this!” Gavin complained.

“Well, then why didn’t you?” Markus asked politely.

“Come on! Can’t you androids do like five-star restaurant bullshit?”

“With the right ingredients, and internet access. Boxed macaroni and cheese was all you had.”

Okay, fair point. “I put ketchup on mine.”

Markus went to the fridge, procured the bottle of ketchup (the only thing in the fridge) and set it a little too firmly on the table. Gavin squeezed the bottle out loudly and rudely over his bowl, which made the android’s perfect brow twitch, which just made Gavin do it more.

“I am normally very a very patient person…” Markus said.

“Could have fooled me,” Gavin said.

“…But maybe I could serve you better if you gave me internet access.”

“Like hell I’m giving you internet access,” Gavin said around a mouthful of mac. “You’re connected to my phone, that’s good enough. CyberLife spies on people through their androids, you know—steals their information and sells it, it’s like, so easy--”

“What day is it?” Markus snapped suddenly.

Gavin paused mid-chew. “Friday?”

“The date.”

“December third or something—I don’t know—”

“And the year?”

“2041.” Gavin frowned. “You didn’t know what year it was?”

“…Usually shut down is a lot longer than a few hours.” He rubbed his forehead where the eye plate connected. “Thank you. For repairing me. I don’t mean to seem ungrateful.”

Gavin grunted and went back to eating. Yeah, clearly you had to watch yourself around deviants. Well, he wasn’t going to be some doormat bullied by his own machinery. “This is the worst mac n’ cheese I’ve ever had.”

“I followed the directions on the box.”

“Huh? You never follow the directions on the box! Look at this, it’s mushy and watery…” The android looked genuinely hurt by this information so Gavin said, “…Okay, okay, I think there’s a Star Wars cookbook around here. You can use that next time.”

“I know how to make some things,” Markus said. He was turning red—Gavin wondered if that was some response to make humans more compliant or an actual blush. “Look, since you clearly don’t actually want an android to serve you, what am I doing here?”

Gavin licked ketchup off his fingers, wondering how to put this delicately. “You’re gonna pretend to be my human boyfriend so I can show up my cousin at his Christmas party.” Oh. So there wasn’t a non-creepy way to say that. Shit.

The super-sophisticated technology that was Markus’ brain took a stupidly long time to process this.

“That’s…not going to work.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”

“No one will believe it.”

“If I tell you to do it convincingly, it will.” How was he having an argument with a robot built to obey him?

“I meant more the basic premise. No offense, but I’m out of your league.”

God, he really looked like he was trying to be non-offensive there. Gavin leaned forward, jabbing a finger into the tabletop. “Let’s be clear here, beauty queen, if you thought I was interested in actually dating you—you have another thing coming! I might be a trash panda living in my little junk shop but at least I’m human and you’re just a—a—”

“But I would be human, too. In this scenario.” Markus folded his arms, standing up to his full impressive height. “Is there any actual possibility someone like me would go out with someone like you?”

Okay, so—yeah. Fair point. “We’ll work on that.”

“How?”

“I don’t—I’ll figure it out! I got weeks to figure it out. I’ll tell you to act like a total fucking nerd or something, shouldn’t be hard.”

“Like you would date a f-freaking nerd.” Markus winced, which made Gavin laugh at him.

“Do you have a clean filter?”

“I get around it most days,” Markus muttered. “Aside from the fact that humans, for all your advancements, perpetuate a primitive and barbaric system of oppression that I absolutely despise and in which I have no intention of participating—"

“See? Listen to yourself! Total nerd. But also, creative! That is what is going to make this work.”

“I’m afraid I’ll sabotage the whole thing.” Gavin wasn’t sure if this was a credible worry or a thinly-veiled threat.

Gavin sat back rubbing his nose. “Okay. I get it. You want something.” God, everyone wanted something…

“Are you recycling me after this party?”

“Starting to seriously consider it!” He did consider it. “Okay, I won’t recycle you.”

“Great incentive.”

“Okay, okay—fine! I’ll let you go. You asked me to let you go, right?”

Markus laughed, which just made Gavin grin. He could get used to that laugh. “During a moment of weakness, yes. There’s no possible way you’re doing that.”

“Hey, you don’t know me, asshole.” He shrugged and finished off the mac n’ cheese. “Whatever. We got a few weeks.”

Markus didn’t say anything, probably pondering what those few weeks might entail. Gavin pondered that himself for a few minutes while he picked up his dish and washed it and the pot in the sink. He could have told Markus to do that, he realized, but—yeah, probably good not to get addicted to being waited on.

Still…

“Speaking of eating.” He dried his hands on Markus’s shirt, as an experiment, just to see what Markus would do. The android did nothing but screw his face up. Good! “Come on.”

Gavin led him to a room in the back. A TV had been left on there, and staring up at the screen was a menagerie of digital and electronic pets, including Tamagotchis, Poo Chis, Pocket Pikachus, Cat Companions, and, duh, Furbies. Lots of Furbies. Their screens and eyes flashed in time with the TV. A sign above said ‘PET SHOP’ in big slightly off-putting letters.

“What the actual fudge,” Markus said.

“I don’t like to leave them with nothing to do,” Gavin said. “And hey, respect your elders—some of these guys are older than me.” He gently picked up the blue Furby, carefully cleaned and blow-dried, and tickled its beak. “Like this one. She’ll need extra attention—the Tamagotchis are pretty much good if you feed and clean up after them. You’ll love the Poo Chis, they’ll sing along with you—”

“You—want me to take care of them?” Markus asked slowly.

“Yep. Pretty much. Extra batteries in that drawer along with the manuals.”

“I thought you hated androids,” Markus said, clearly still very, very stunned.

“Yeah. Androids.”

“…I’m more built for dusting. This place could use some dusting.”

“Dust adds authenticity! Don’t tell me you’re afraid of Furbies.”

“I’m—not afraid, I just—”

“Then do the job.” Gavin patted Markus on the shoulder as he glanced around. “This should take you most of the night. Don’t even think about making noise or turning on lights or coming into my room.”

Markus gestured to the menagerie.

“Oh, they can make as much noise as they want. Music to my ears.” He put his finger to his lips, winked, and headed downstairs to play video games until he fell asleep—a perfect evening really.

Chapter Text

Gavin shuffled out of bed and most of the way through his morning workout (the one holdover from his days as a cop that kept him sane) before he remembered the android upstairs. He rushed up, half expecting to see things on fire—he’d really have to shut the android down at night, he was giving himself gray hairs—but the shop was fine. Everything looked great actually. Too great. Gavin approached a shelf of talking action figures and slid a finger across the surface. It came back clean.

Gavin stomped over to the pet shop to find the android surrounded by Furbies in a ring like a demon summoned. But he was just taking turns rubbing beaks and scratching ears. The blue Furby, who Gavin decided to call Atraxas, Harbinger of Doom (or Cheez-Its, couldn’t decide), sat in pride of place on Markus’ knee, where Markus could easily help when one of her eyelids went wonky. Gavin’s ire abated somewhat, due to the adorableness of the scene.

“Marla,” he said, cross his arms and leaning against the door frame. “What happened to my dust?”

Markus gave him a warning look, then pointed to a heaping waste basket. “I would have used the vacuum but apparently you’re weird about noise.”

“I told you not to dust.”

“No, not specifically.” He glanced around. “This place is kind of cool, if you fixed it up.”

“How many places have you lived?” Gavin said, then shook his head as he stomped away to take a shower and find breakfast. “Trust me, this place is not cool. Put all the dust back where you found it.”

“That is impossible,” Markus called after him, “even for an android!”

“Then—” Gavin scrunched up his face, but took a deep breath and spun around with a forced a smile. “Then you’re gonna help me with the accessions.”

“Accessions?” Markus carefully stepped out of the summoning ring of Furbies. The poor bastard actually looked excited until Gavin led him upstairs to the cash register, and he saw the stacks of shoe boxes filled with old cassettes, floppy discs, and CDs hidden behind the counter.

“Each of these, you gotta figure out what’s on it, if it works, and enter it into the database.” He gestured to the lovingly-restored 1999 hot pink iMac computer. Markus was of course unimpressed that he was in the presence of yet another illustrious ancestor, and pointed at the boxes.

“Oh! I’m backwards compatible! If you connect me to the internet I can interface with the whole box, then search for all the information you need, compile a database—"

“Nope, no spying. You do it the old-fashioned way—put it in the tape player or the computer or whatever, open it, read it, enter the information, label it, sort it. Don’t get distracted and start doing something else like last night.” His satisfaction as he watched Markus’ enthusiasm wither could not be contained, so he squeezed the scruff of Markus’ neck and shook him a little. “Even you can’t mess that up, huh, Freckles? My wish is your command.”

Markus didn’t pull away, probably couldn’t, but he did glare. “…Have you ever heard of The Monkey’s Paw?”

“…What is that, some old memory reader?”

This was apparently a joke or something, because Markus laughed at him. Ugh. At least the dumb robot got to work.

“Did you accession me?” he asked when Gavin returned from unlocking the shop, flipping the OPEN sign, and scrounging breakfast. Markus turned his nose up at Gavin’s perfectly-acceptable bowl of cereal, half and half, some old bar nuts and a leftover beer.

“Why the hell would I do that?” Gavin dug around in his bowl. What was wrong with beereal?... “I’m not selling you in the shop, and you’re gonna pretend to be human.”

The electronic bell buzzed, and Gavin froze as a couple of cute old biddies wandered in. He gave them a sort of up-nod that people from the 1900s seem to like, then elbowed Markus and whispered. “Like, right now.” Did androids take hints? Fooling old people would be good practice.

Markus gave Gavin a wink that would keep him up later, and continued working on the floppies. Gavin didn’t trust Markus to go through the accessions and watch the shop, though, so he stuck around, listening to the ladies as they made their way through the labyrinth of rooms. Maybe he’d get to see another wink, too.

“What would you put in if you did?” Markus asked suddenly.

Gavin looked up from the security cameras. “Huh?”

“About me. In the description.” Markus pushed the disk into the old computer and tapped a few commands. “Burnt umber skin, sienna hair?”

“Too many freckles,” Gavin said. “Can you get back to work?”

“Working as fast as I can,” Markus sat back lazily but the screen was doing that hourglass thing so it couldn’t be helped. “Azure and sea-foam eyes. Features delicate, feline—”

“The fuck?” Gavin said, turning red—or, vermilion if they were gonna get color-technical. “Wh-what do you think you are, the Sistine Chapel?”

“Oh, so you’d focus on my personality? Good attitude, hard-working, likes cleaning…”

“Terrible cook.”

“You gave me one chance! Do you even know what you’re eating right now?...”

“You should include that you work in an antique shop!”

Both man and android jumped at the new voice. Gavin hadn’t noticed the old biddies return to the front register. They were grinning at them over their purchases.

“People love to see that kind of unique stuff on dating apps,” the dame continued, to a chorus of giggles from the others.

Gavin’s coloration changed from vermilion to crimson. “We’re not—”

“Don’t get jealous, babe,” Markus said, and smiled easily at the old ladies. “We didn’t meet online, I was just speculating what it’d be like if we did.”

Then the android—touched him. It wasn’t anywhere weird, looking back on it Gavin figured the android could have gotten away with grabbing his ass or ruffling his hair. But Markus’s hand just reached around, brushed across the small of his back and settled on his waist, cradling him as gently as a glass of wine. It was the first time an android ever touched him on its own. Gavin’s first instinct was to melt into the touch—his second instinct was to punch Markus in the mouth. Which probably would have gotten the old ladies to call the cops on him.

He was vaguely aware of the conversation continuing.

“—Though I don’t think you’d last long on a dating app, no matter what he says,” one of the crones said. Gavin gave himself an eye strain as he forced an eye roll.

Markus smiled in a way that was practically infra-red, and he playfully squeezed the little muffin top spilling over the waistband Gavin’s pants, the one bit that refused to respond to sit-ups. Then he let go. “Hey, we’ve got a sale going on with our Giga Pets—want to add one to round it up to a hundred?...”

The ladies readily agreed, walking out with their own digital pets and having spent, actually, more Gavin could typically get from old folks. Probably more, actually—the Giga Pets were definitely not on sale.

Markus noticed him staring and shrugged. “Honestly, you’d have a harder time impersonating an android.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. The only prerequisite for humanity is being hot.” Shit, he should not have admitted Markus was hot, he 100% should not have done so in rhyme. The ghost of Markus’ touch was still on his skin like a fingerprint stored in a phone and he rubbed it hard. “Don’t you fuckin’ touch me ever again, you got it?”

“Got it. Though I’m not sure we’ll be able to pull off being a couple if we never touch.” Markus smiled. “Isn’t it wild, getting touched when you can’t pull away?”

Gavin glared at him. “Fine. Like, for the act, I guess if you—that’s, you know, whatever—and if you don’t like me touching you just tell me to fuck off! None of this passive aggressive bullshit, got it?”  

“Alright.” Markus smiled. “Who knew humans were trainable?”

“What the hell is that supposed to—”

“Nothing. What’s this?” Markus’ attention slid away to one of the shoe boxes. He unearthed a hardcover book, and when he saw the cover his eyes went all cat-crazy. He immediately started reading the tissue-thin pages.

“Ugh, I hate it when people do that,” Gavin grunted. “They think ‘donation’ means they can leave whatever they want.”

“‘Being your slave, what should I do but tend upon the hours and times of your desire?’” Markus said, or read. “‘I have no precious time at all to spend, nor services to do, till you require. Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you.’”

“What the fuck kind of pansy-ass nursery rhyme is that?” Gavin said, startled. “Dr. Seuss?”

“…It’s Shakespeare,” Markus said. “You didn’t know that? I thought everyone knew—”

“Some moldy old shit that won’t sell here,” Gavin said, who only had a vague idea about Shakespeare but absolutely no desire to say so now. “Toss it.”

Markus blinked at him a couple of times, but Gavin’s silence clarified the order in his robot brain. He turned and obediently dropped the book into the trash can.

“You’re the reason robots want to kill all humans.” Markus’ voice low and threatening as he stared at it in the bin.

“Not today, Freckles!” Gavin said. “Now, sort through those floppies like I told you.”

*

The next morning, Gavin remembered he forgot to tell Markus to just sit still and not touch anything, right when he heard a knock on his bedroom door.

“Markus,” he grumbled, still half asleep, which was apparently permission enough for Markus to just walk in. He blinked up in time to get blinded as Markus opened the basement curtains. “Fuckin—!” He squawked and fell out of bed.

“It’s 7:00 AM,” Markus said, cheerfully. “Cloudy with a chance of rain. You’ll want to wear a coat if you go outside.”

“Is this your base programming kicking in or something?” Gavin sat up and scrambled back when he saw Markus approaching. He yanked his blanket to cover himself but the android just beamed at him like a really judgy sexy lampshade, holding a steaming cup. “You finally over that moldy book?”

“No, I’m sure I’ll get back at you for that another time,” Markus replied, then cocked his head. “Gavin, you’re not—afraid of androids, are you?”

“No! Stupid—” Gavin stumbled to his feet, still holding the blanket to his chest. Markus handed him the cup. “What is this, rat poison?”

“Coffee,” Markus replied.

Gavin wrinkled his nose and peered down into it (he didn’t have his contacts in yet). “This isn’t coffee.”

 “It’s a latte.”

Gavin now held the drink at arm’s length—maybe he needed reading glasses soon, too. “It’s got shit on it.”

Markus’ features froze. “That’s a leaf.”

“A leaf?!—”

“A foam leaf! My G—goodness.” Markus pinched the bridge of his nose. “What rock have you been living under?”

“A nice big one. Free of foam.” He handed the cup back. “I don’t even want to know how you made it.”

“You’re just messing around with me, right? You do know what a latte is?”

Gavin decided to leave that up for debate. If he was going to be shirtless he might as well be shirtless in the manner to which he was accustomed. He dropped to the floor and started doing some pushups. This had to be the number one reason why androids were so horrible, they didn’t even need to do pushups.

“…So you won’t mind if I have it, then,” Markus said.

“Oh, I’d mind.” He tried to lose himself in the rhythm of the workout, hoping Markus would go away. “Can’t reward bad behavior.”

“You know,” Markus said, conversationally, “This will work better if you showed me even the least bit of respect.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Then this deal of yours is off.”

“Yeah, well, good luck with that.” He raised himself up on one hand and twisted, arms extended, one of his cooler moves and he hoped Markus would be impressed. “In the meantime, throw that out, and make me a new coffee.”

Markus ran his tongue over his teeth, but poured the drink out in the bathroom sink. “If you don’t like this leaf, you’re gonna hate what I did to the windows.”

“…What you do to the windows?”

“Oh I couldn’t possibly do more than one thing at a time, Gavin,” Markus said. “I’m a stupid android.”

 He left to remake the coffee. Gavin switched to sit-ups and got five done before he was scrambling into a t-shirt and thundering up the stairs.

It wasn’t exactly what had been done to the windows as behind them. Markus found paint—Gavin wasn’t sure where—and had painted the windows with red and gold leaves straight out of a Japanese woodblock print, fading in and out of 16-bit pixels around the entire thing. That wasn’t all. He pulled back the big security gates that stopped vandals from breaking the windows at night, and in the windows there were actual, like, displays? With stuff in them. Furbies were locked in a battle out of Samurai Warriors, decked out in tiny cardboard kabuto helmets and wielding katana snatched from some nearby action figures. Atraxas Harbinger of Doom stood on a hill made of video game cartridges, waving a flag and looking out at the street with wide, glittering eyes.

“This isn’t Harrods!” He shouted across the shop, then went out to shut the security gates.

“Don’t!” Markus was at his side, holding a new cup. “It looks nice, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, nice enough to rob. I’m gonna shut you down at night from now on—How did you even get out here to do it?”

“Well, technically this bit of sidewalk here is part of your property. Don’t you want your coffee?”

“This is—“ Gavin looked down. “The sidewalk is mine?” This gave Markus the opportunity to slip the coffee into his hands, and he took a sip. “Oh, that’s good.” He squinted at the coffee, black like his soul, just how he liked it. The beans tasted different, less bitter… “How’d you do that?”

Markus shrugged. “I don’t suck.”

“You don’t suck!” Gavin agreed. He continued to sip his coffee and admire the window displays with much more positive feelings.

“I also made the leftover floppies and cassettes from the donations into Christmas ornaments," Markus added. "I glued some googly-eyes on them. Humans like things with eyes.”

An accurate statement but not one Gavin wanted to endorse at the moment with Markus taking all kinds of liberties. “Alright, Mary Poppins. Shut the gates.”

“But we’re—”

“I can be open when I want. Anyway we’re open late for the light parade. I got some errands to run and no way am I leaving you here by yourself.” He considered nudging Markus but after yesterday he just tilted his head and leaned in close. “And please, protest the entire way.”

“No, wait,” Markus said, without much enthusiasm, as he shut the gates.

Chapter Text

“Carl never made me do this.”

Gavin lowered his phone and looked around just to check, but no, they were still in the grocery store parking lot. “You never did this before?”

“I was too busy helping him with his artistic process.”

“So what I’m hearing is, you bought everything online. You know, you’re the reason our society is degenerating.”

“Can I just wait in the car? What if your cousin sees us?”

“Eli is a certified recluse, we could walk around his front yard and he wouldn’t even notice. We just have a few errands.”

“I could run them for you with internet access.”

“Give it up, man! We’re doing this. Now, I think you’re forgetting something?”

Markus glared daggers at him, but got out, walked around to Gavin’s side of the car, and opened his door for him.

Gavin hopped out and adjusted Markus’ hat slightly, an old Gears baseball cap that Gavin found when he realized that Markus couldn’t go out in public as an android without his LED, and the android armband. “You look great in reflective aqua,” he said, hoping Markus enjoyed the use of big artistic words.

“Surprised you can see it from all the way down there,” Markus replied.

“Hey, no more short jokes! That’s low-hanging fruit.”

Markus smiled, which was just as bad as him saying ‘perfect for you, then’. Gavin refused to be browbeaten by his own android though. He marched in and made Markus push him around in the grocery cart while he dicked around on his phone. At least until Markus ‘accidentally’ dropped a bag of frozen vegetables on his nuts (“Sorry Gavin, I thought that’s where they go,” haha, hilarious), and Gavin had to take away his cart privileges. He could definitely see why people recycled deviants, especially when Markus tried to grab the cashier android by the hand when he thought Gavin wasn’t looking.

“Hey! What the hell!” Gavin pulled him away. “What’re you doing?”

“I was just trying something,” Markus said, squinting at the cashier, who was a new model. He just kept ringing up the purchases like nothing happened.

“Is this some deviant thing?” Gavin said, then shook his head. “You know, never mind—I don’t want to know. Keep your creepy plots to take over the world to yourself.”

“All androids deserve to be free, even the new ones.”

“Yeah, well, lead your robot uprising on your own time, alright?”

…Still, it wasn’t all bad having an android around. When they put the groceries away in the freezing car Gavin insisted on stopping by a nearby thrift store, and having a hot guy twice his size following him around and carrying various vintage electronic finds for him was a complete power trip. Probably because Markus acted like this was his own personal hell.

“When is this party, again? Just trying to figure out how many more hours of this I have to take…”

“Come on, cheer up,” Gavin said, as Markus juggled armfuls of VCRs. “What did you even do before? Seriously, like—my guess is manicurist, ‘cause of all the bitching.”

“I—took care of an old man,” Markus said, but it was sort of muttered, like he didn’t want to answer. Maybe the ‘seriously’ forced him to. Gavin avoided feeling bad about this by laughing at him.

“An old man, huh?” Gavin caught sight of a tray of old reading glasses and tried a few out, just for fun, not like he really needed them. “Did you give him sponge baths and wash his dentures?”

“Yes. Can we talk about something else? Maybe how we’re going to make this plan to fool your cousin believable.”

“What’s there to work on?  You act human okay.” There. That assuaged any guilt about being a colossal dick. He picked out a pair with thick tortoiseshell rims and tried them on. “How’re these?”

Markus barely even looked at him. “…Those aren’t even close to your prescription.”

“Yeah, but they look cool. How do you know what my prescription is?”

Markus sighed, and looked him right in the eyes for a few seconds.

Gavin wasn’t used to prolonged eye contact with anything more advanced than LED displays. He postured a little to hide his squirming. “Can tell just by looking, huh?”

“I can.” Markus seemed to peer right into his soul, then shifted a couple of old waffle irons in his arms so he could point out a pair of heart-shaped frames.

“Haha, fucker. Seriously.”

Markus pointed to another pair, more like Tuxedo Mask, and Gavin tried them on.

“I know what I’ll need to do,” Markus said as Gavin looked at himself through his phone camera. “The one that’s going to need to work at it is you.”

“Huh?”

“Well, relationships are a new thing for you, right?”

“Fuck you!” Gavin whipped off the glasses as if they were the reason for his shitty love life. “I have experience with guys.”

“One guy, I’m sure.”

Okay, Gavin had to laugh at that. He picked through the glasses again until Markus nodded at an Urkel-esque pair. “How did you turn out to be such a bastard?”

“I guess Carl was, a little.”

“Huh. Typical rich guy. What happened to him? Did you kill him?” He heard of rogue androids doing that before the remotes—but it was all just errors. Accidents. Right?

Markus blinked a couple of times. “I… don’t know.”

So that was a yes on poisoning his former owner with toxic paints, then. “You’re gonna have to work on being less creepy for the Christmas party.”

“Then you’re going to have to work on being a decent human being.”

“I’m decent!”

Markus raised his eyebrows slightly.

“Look, maybe I don’t have a lot of experience dating, but… ” Huh. He never told anyone that. Not explicitly. He usually tried for the ‘doesn’t care about getting dates’ persona over ‘probably couldn’t get a date if he tried’. Whatever. Not like telling a piece of plastic really counted, right? He slapped the Tuxedo Mask pair of glasses into Markus’ free hand. “Don’t go spreading that around.”

“I won’t,” Markus said, with weirdly comforting sincerity, even if he had to say it. Of course he immediately ruined the moment. “I just think it’s a little unbalanced to make your boyfriend carry everything when you go shopping.”

“Well, good thing you’re not my boyfriend today. Shouldn’t you be worried about like, android rights first?”

“Rights and respect aren’t so easy to detangle.”

“Yeah, well, you’re gonna get real good at detangling when I show you the box of cords at the shop—”

“Hey Gav, who’s your friend?”

Gavin turned. Hank was stepping out from the sporting goods section, wearing a highly-objectionable button-up in lime green with pink popsicles all over it. Which would have made Gavin feel like he was winning the game of life, except buying reading glasses didn’t look much better. Hank’s stupid polished android appeared behind him and Gavin bristled.

“What, are you following me now?” he accused.

“Kid, it’s Christmas!” Hank smiled at Markus and held his hand out. “I’m Hank—Gavin and I used to work together.”

Gavin took a second to realize he was blocking Markus’ android armband from view.

Markus stared at the hand before quickly shifting Gavin’s purchases in his arms. “Markus. Hi.” He reached around Gavin and shook.

Hank frowned down at Markus’s hand for a second too long. “Have we met?”

“No!” Gavin shoved himself between them. “Back off old man, he’s my boyfriend.”

He expected Hank to put up more of a fight, at least comment on how weird it was that Gavin was dating a hunk like Markus. Hank just said, “Maybe we’ll see you at the light parade? This guy loves seeing the Christmas lights.”

He jabbed a thumb at the android, who beamed pleasantly and was too dumb to inform Hank that Markus was an android. Hopefully. Especially now that he said boyfriend. Could new model androids take a hint?

“…Or, you know—” Hank was saying, waving his hands. “The Party.”

Gavin did not appreciate his tone, nor that Hank apparently got an invite to Eli’s party, too. “Whatever, it’s not that exciting.”

“It sure as shit is. I hear Eli’s announcing his third Person of the Year award or something.”

“I don’t really keep track.”

“You think he’ll give out cars as party-favors like last time?—”

“We’re kind of busy here, Hank.”

Hank just smirked at the trays of reading glasses. “I recommend a stronger frame than those—I’m always accidentally falling asleep on mine!”

Gavin heard his own teeth squeak, and didn’t stop shielding Markus until Hank and his android left. “Jerks,” he muttered to Markus, though he did grab the more durable Erkel-style glasses from the tray.

“Eli sounds generous,” Markus observed.

“Ha! Don’t fall for that, he’s a conniving little shit.”

Markus squeezed the hand that Hank shook. “He has nice friends, at least.”

“That was my friend! Whatever, he didn’t even think it was weird that we were dating.” Markus was still opening and closing his hand like it was his first handshake ever. Maybe it was. Gavin grabbed his hand and squeezed. “There. Happy?” 

They paid for their purchases, and Gavin headed back to the car. Gavin firmly ignored the urge to rub his own hand now.   

“Can I drive?” Markus asked.

“Hell no!”

“I’m a very safe driver.”

“Don’t take me for a fucking idiot. Get in.” What, did Hank not notice how cute Markus was? Clearly the best android ever made. He tried to look at Markus like Hank had: non-threatening buzz cut, shoes a little too small (borrowed from Gavin), sweatpants…the sweatpants were kind of lame…

He searched his phone for clothing stores and got bombarded with ads for the mall across the street. He never bought clothes in the mall. That never stopped him from seeing ads, of course, and imagining, dreaming…

“Enjoy getting dressed up like a doll, Marluxia?”

“No.” Markus tried to pull the door closed with Gavin in the way. “I really, really don’t.”

“Oh, who doesn’t like to be objectified?” He clicked his tongue.

“Gavin, the mall is a hotbed of hedonistic commercialism, entirely bereft of soul.”

“Normally, I would agree. But it’s Christmas.” He patted Markus sympathetically on the shoulder. “And the tongue-click thing means follow me.”

“Oh really? Wow, Gavin, you’re teaching me so much…”

Gavin just headed toward the mall, Markus of course falling into step behind him. God, what a rush!

Chapter Text

Gavin wandered down the aisles of one of the bigger department stores in the mall whose name he forced himself to ignore in the interest of his mental real estate. This time he filled Markus’ arms with the clothes befitting the boyfriend of his dreams while he sucked on a bubble tea. Hey, he was in the mall, he had to get the full experience…

“Goddamn.” Gavin squinted down at his drink. “Have these things always been so full of sugar?”

“I’ll finish it for you,” Markus offered.

“Tapioca will gum up your circuits.”

“No, it—” but Gavin was already tossing the drink into a trash can. “…won’t.” Markus sighed. “Your dedication to evil amazes me, as always.”

“Evil? Really?” Gavin picked up a stuffed bear that had been cruelly re-fashioned into a belt bag, and held it up. “You know, I could be a lot worse.”

“Wow, I hadn’t thought of that,” Markus said, unmoved. “You’re a saint.”

“Aw. Come on.” Gavin gave the android a little kiss with the bear’s snout. That made Markus roll his eyes at least and Gavin grinned as he added the bag to the pile.  He only stopped when Markus physically could not carry any more, then settled in the husband seat outside of the fitting room to wait.

“This is alright,” Markus said, stepping out of the dressing room looking far too comfortable in a  sweater and cargo pants. “It’s utilitarian, though I wouldn’t mind a better brand of sweatshirt, it’ll last longer—"

“Nah, you gotta look sharp.” Gavin spun his finger. “Next.”

Markus emerged a couple of minutes later in a lace dress shirt and leather pants. “If you make me wear this I will haunt every electronic you ever touch,” he vowed, though Gavin didn’t hear him over his own laughter. “I’ll take that as a no.”

Next, Markus appeared in a bomber jacket and runner’s leggings. “This is not Christmas party appropriate.”

“Maybe not.” Gavin snapped a picture, though.

“Die in a fire.”

“I might if you bend over,” Gavin giggled, then raised his hands as Markus’ lip curled. “Fine, fine!” He snuck one more picture as Markus headed back inside, then smiled to himself as he sent it to Tina with Markus’ perfect ass circled.

The response he got from Tina was a picture of a Ken doll, and Gavin immediately wished he hadn’t sent it.

When Markus stepped out wearing a cool asymmetrical jacket and sexy jeans and looking absolutely miserable in both, Gavin had to ask: “Are you even trying at this point?”

“I wasn’t trying to begin with.”

“Okay, come here.” He put his phone away and stepped into the dressing room, picking out a few outfits. “Here, try this…uh…”

Markus had been pulling up his shirt. “What?”

“Uh—” Gavin took a step back to give himself room to think of some dumb comment. But the dressing room wasn’t big enough for that, and he just sort of flailed. “Uh—”

Markus caught him by the front of his shirt. “Sit down before you hurt yourself, Gavin,” he purred, and shoved Gavin into a seat. Maybe some protocol let him do that if he thought Gavin was unsteady, which, you know, he definitely wasn’t, just—startled—and then Markus was taking off his shirt and revealing a lot of that burnt umber skin and a lot more pretty freckles. Yes, Gavin just saw Markus’ chest before. It just wasn’t the same vibe when Markus was actively undressing in front of him. Not that Gavin should be vibing with any version of Markus. Where was the uncanny valley when you needed it?

“Better watch that look,” Markus said. “If we’ve been dating you’re probably used to this.”

Gavin looked down—at his phone. “I guess.” Yep. Definitely looking at his phone, not at Markus. He was the human, he could leave any time he wanted. He opened and closed a few apps in a desperate attempt to look like he was doing something while Markus put on some carpenter pants, a flannel, and a shearling trucker jacket. Gavin barely looked at it.

“It’s fine.”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s making me hot looking at you.” Shit, that came out wrong.

“Gross,” Markus said mildly. “I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?”

Gavin growled, shoved his phone in his pocket and looked Markus dead in the eye. “Do I look uncomfortable to you, Marvin?”

Markus played with the baseball hat in a decidedly R-rated manner. He held Gavin’s gaze as he tossed the hat to the side, then slowly undressed.  Gavin didn’t look away from his eyes. Didn’t blink.

“I’m a basic paramedic,” Markus said, as his hands did stuff with fabric and buttons and zippers Gavin was only peripherally aware of, like watching the opening credits of a James Bond movie mixed with getting a root canal, “I can sense things like pupil dilation, increased heart rate, perspiration.”

“Convenient,” Gavin said. What was he afraid of? Markus wasn’t so hot.

“Mm. It’s never really useful.” Markus looked away briefly to get the new outfit, giving Gavin a brief overwhelming urge to look elsewhere—but he didn’t. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t give this piece of plastic the satisfaction. “Humans know best, so if you say you’re not uncomfortable I have to assume that’s true, even if you seem to be a pathological liar.”

“Like I said, I have experience with guys.”

“Really? Because it doesn’t look like it. Lucky for you I don’t really, either.” He spread his hands, wearing what was clearly the winning outfit for the Christmas party—a svelte turtleneck in some inky shade between blue and purple, with rust-colored chinos. Simple. Highly effective.

It was only when Gavin looked up from the outfit that he realized Markus’ gaze had been raking over him, too.

Shit.

“That’s good,” Gavin got up, pushing toward the door, his face red. “Fine, yep—just get changed.”

“What? Don’t like being objectified yourself?” Markus said as Gavin struggled with the door lock. He waited until the door opened, then, in front of God and everybody, picked Gavin’s grown-ass up around his muffin-top midsection, clean off the ground, and cuddled him against his chest. “You’re such a raw, emotional human,” Markus purred in his ear, “So empathetic, aren’t you…"

“C-cut it out!” Gavin spluttered. Markus of course let him go, leaving Gavin to stagger back while the android laughed his plastic ass off. Gavin instantly pushed the door shut between them which did nothing to muffle the laughter. Gavin leaned his back against the door and rubbed his cheek. Damn, this fucker was going to give him a coronary.

He scrunched his eyes shut. No, he couldn’t just recycle the idiot. Well—he could, he was apparently a ‘pathological liar,’ right, who cared if he did? No one would call him out on it, he was the human and Markus was just a computer. He dropped his phone in the toilet last month. Same thing. Deviant androids weren’t so rare, not like other electronics—

He froze for a couple seconds, letting the idea congeal like cold pizza, then pulled the fitting room door open. Markus fell over trying to put on pants, but Gavin couldn’t be bothered to leer this time.

“Get dressed fast. I have a job for a boyfriend.”

*

Gavin strode across black starry carpet and past blindingly neon lights as fast as he could. He still ended up blinded as he stepped into the mens room. “In here,” he said, and muscled the android into a stall.

“Gavin, please don’t tell me you want company,” Markus said. Gavin glared at him.

“Ha ha. We’re just gonna play some games.” Gavin started working on his outfit—taking off the armband, stealing the baseball cap. He stepped back and admired his handiwork, but something was still missing. Things in his pockets? He hesitated over giving Markus his multitool or his car keys and, given one was a lot more important than the other, gave him the car keys.

“This is a children’s arcade.” Markus blinked. “Wait, we?...”

“There’s something I need you to win for me.” He gave a grin worthy, he hoped, of a bank robber. “And they don’t let androids play here, for obvious reasons.”

“Ah.”

“This just more practice playing human, right?”

“Surely you can just—buy whatever it is they have here for much less.”

“Not this thing.” Gavin peeked out of the stall, annoyingly aware of Markus peeking out over his head like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and waved him out when the coast was clear. He led the way to the back counter where you exchanged won tickets for prizes. The flashing lights and loud music from the games faded to the background as he pointed to a dusty box on the top shelf the size of a suitcase.  

“Ten thousand tickets,” Markus said, “For…a boombox?”

“That, my blue-blooded friend,” Gavin said, leaning casually against him, “Is a vintage mid-1970s boombox. The only one for sale in the US. These guys do not know what they have.” Gavin picked at some eye crud. “You either help me win that, or, uh, play the human claw game. Your choice, I know how much you like choices.”

Markus glanced at the above-ground swimming pool full of packaged snacks, with people in harnesses dangled over the top of it trying to grab as many as they could before the winch system yanked them back into the air.

“Boombox,” he said.

Gavin grinned, handing him an arcade coin with twenty dollars already loaded on it. “I’ll see you back here in—I’ll let you take your time—half an hour?”

Markus stuck his tongue in his cheek, and stalked off into the arcade. Gavin entertained himself on the motorcycle simulator for a while before trying out one of the fast-reflexes games, and a flight simulator. Of course he saved his favorite for last to spend as much time at it as possible (Markus probably needed more than half an hour to get that many tickets): the zombie shoot-em-up game. He slipped his own arcade coin inside before he dropped down into the secluded cockpit. Good thing everyone else thought the game was lame and—

“Gavin, I’m concerned by the number of closed spaces you want me to get into with you.”

Gavin startled as he settled next to Markus on the bench seat, a plastic gun already in the android’s hand. He forgot that this was technically a two-person game. And he already put in his tokens for the game, so— “Fine. Don’t bring down my score.”

Markus smiled humorlessly, and the game began.

“Aren’t you supposed to be winning me tickets?”

“Already did,” Markus replied.

“Ha! Yeah, right.”

“We can leave whenever you want to.”

“…After I kick your ass at this. I’ve been playing this game since I was six.”

“You’re not bad.” Markus turned to stare at him, still shooting at the zombie hoarde without even looking, which was just insulting. “This game is not appropriate for a six-year-old.”

“Yeah, well, not all of us can skip a messed-up childhood and go straight to being perfect adults.” He shoved Markus with his shoulder. “Focus.”

Markus continued to shoot the undead as they moved through the digital compound, saving Gavin’s ass a couple of times though Gavin’s score was technically higher. “It’s not that amazing, being perfect. I think it’s more interesting how humans are always changing. Bearing the marks of their behaviors in their wrinkles and fat deposits.”

“That’s fuckin’ weird, man,” Gavin observed. He wasted a good kill to glance over at Markus. “It’s way better to be hot.”

Markus killed the approaching zombie before it got to him. “I’m saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Yeah, well, must be nice to live in that world. As they stepped out of the cockpit (Markus got the high score but only because Gavin let him win), there was only one guy people stared at. Gavin decided that androids owed humans their undying devotion and service just for making them so good-looking.

Markus put the huge boombox on one shoulder as Gavin exchanged the tickets, watching the androids behind the counter with a clouded expression. He actually hadn’t complained that much today—like, not as much as Gavin would have in his shoes. And... yeah, Markus was just an android designed by some techs in a lab, and being perfect wasn’t that amazing, but Gavin was only human, and humans liked to make life easier for pretty people.

“Pick something,” he said, nudging Markus out of his silent reflection or whatever.

“I’m sorry?”

“Pick something. For you—for being not a complete excrescence today.”

“Surprised you even know that word,” Markus muttered.

“Aw hey. Come on. You did okay today.” He slapped Markus on the back. “Everyone wants something from an arcade!”

“I—don’t…”

“Look, they even have stuff for androids.” He pointed to the android t-shirts on display, with slogans like “Circuit Baby” and worse.

Markus stared at them in horror. “Please do not make me wear that.”

Normally this would have made Gavin get one in every color but he did need to get back to the shop, and in a moment of weakness, he took pity. Without any input from Markus, he picked something himself: a screen in a big rubbery case shaped like a panda. It looked like a phone, more or less, at least to the seven-year-olds it was marketed toward. “It just has games and stuff,” he said, handing it over. “We can take it out of the case and use it for your human disguise later.”

Markus looked down at the fake-phone in his hand. The touchscreen didn’t  respond to his android fingertips but it came with a stylus. “I guess since you own me, this is still yours, right?” he said.

“I dunno.” Clearly there was no pleasing the android.

“I’m just not sure whether objectifying or infantilizing is worse…”

“Alright, if you don’t want it—”

Gavin made to grab it but Markus tipped it out of his reach. Markus stared down at him for a second, then shoved the phone in his pocket. “Can I have that necklace, too?”

He pointed to a little robot pendant hanging from a chain. It had crystals in its eyes but—hey, beauty was in the eye of the beholder, right? And Gavin had enough tickets. He got the necklace and handed it over.

“Oh—no.” Markus pushed it back. “I want you to wear it.”

“Me!” Gavin laughed, but what the hell, the Ghetto Blaster put him in a good mood (definitely nothing else). He put the chain around his neck. Markus clearly didn’t expect him to actually do it, forcing Gavin to roll his eyes and leave the pendant un-tucked from his shirt as he turned to leave. Markus followed a couple steps behind, looking far too cool with the boombox on his shoulder. Gavin wondered if he should be carrying it.

When they got back, Markus immediately disappeared into the kitchen with the groceries, which made it feel like one of his Tina hangout nights. Which was ridiculous. They were not friends. Gavin didn’t hang around the kitchen table to chat, just took a beer and dicked around on his phone some more (which mostly meant arguing with Tina about the merits of the various outfits he’d gotten). She told him he was contributing to the fast fashion industry. He told her that he’d never get a second chance to pretend he was dating someone with taste.

His body did not know how to react when the downstairs rooms slowly and inexorably filled with delicious smells. Like, five-star restaurants didn’t smell this good. His mom’s own cooking didn’t smell this good.

“What the fuck are you making?” Gavin said, when he couldn’t take it anymore, moments before Markus set a plate of…something on the table. It looked expensive. Possibly more expensive than Gavin ate outside of Eli’s Christmas parties. Gavin sat down.

“Risotto, with duck confit,” Markus said.

“Can’t you just make spaghetti like a normal person?”

“Sure. Give me internet access.”

Gavin tasted the meal. About half a minute later it was gone. “Huh. That’s pretty good! Reminds me of my mom’s tuna casserole.”

“Holy crap,” Markus breathed, staring at the empty bowl.

“Kinda took a long time, though.” Gavin picked up his bowl and began to lick it. “What else can you make?”

“Uh.” Markus blinked. “B-bacon and eggs? That’s all that’s in my short-term cache…. You inhaled that entire plate—"

“Yeah, well, like I said there’s a cookbook around here. I’m sure it’s got how to make pasta. Use that next time.”

“…You’re certifiably insane.”

“But very well-fed.” Gavin leaned over and whacked Markus on the leg. “Good job, Freckles.”

“…Does this mean I can have net access?”

“Don’t push it.”

Chapter Text

“I’ve never seen a parade before.”

“Huh?” Markus' comment threw Gavin somewhat as he was in the middle of trying to explain that smashing a lightsaber against your friend’s head constituted ‘breaking and buying,’ yes, even during the Light Parade, even though it was practically Christmas. He hoped Markus would read the room, see all the customers loitering in the warm shop while they waited for the parade to start. Maybe convince them to, you know, buy something or get the fuck out. The android was, however, unhelpfully oblivious to his problems.

“Carl didn’t like public events or parties.”

“Yeah, well, he had it right. Go get more ornaments.”

Markus obeyed at minimum speed, his eyes wandering outside to the gaps between the crowds, and his heart very clearly out there among the lights.

Gavin growled at the lightsaber-happy teen. “Don’t go anywhere.” He left the register and followed Markus downstairs.

He found the android with a box of the ornaments under his arm, standing on an office chair to peek out one of the basement windows.

“Markie, honey,” Gavin said, reaching out to gently strong-arm him off the chair. “Babe. Sweetie-pie—”

“Stop calling me pet-names,” Markus said.

“—You haven’t even worked a full week yet, you don’t get an evening off. These ornaments are selling like its Black Friday. You know how often I make sales in this dump?”

“Why do you keep calling this place a dump? You clearly care about it.”

“Why do you always answer a question with another question?”

“You’re only making a few bucks off each of these ornaments. You could close the shop, just for a few minutes…”

Gavin blinked at him. “I don’t deserve this.” He snatched box of ornaments and headed upstairs.

“Come on, Gavin,” Markus followed him doggedly through the halls despite the crowds. “Holidays only come around once a year.”

“Yeah, all billion of ‘em,” Gavin said. “You can celebrate them all after Eli’s party.” He lifted the box above his head to avoid a crowd of kids. “This is a business, not a museum!” he shouted at them, then jumped when Markus was right there at his elbow again. Thankfully Markus caught the box before he could drop it.

“Can you take me to see it later?” he asked, which betrayed a complete misunderstanding of how parades worked.

Gavin dug his fingers into his eyes and rubbed them around a little. “Look, if you can sell a DDR mat, you have a deal.”

“…Really? We’ll go see the parade?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever—now will you stop moping and get off my ass? I got a line down the hall here!—” He sighed as he glared at the counter. “And a broken lightsaber.”

He pushed it aside to check out a few customers. It took him a second to realize that Markus was still watching him. Gavin glared back, wishing he wore something a little nicer if Markus was gonna stare at him all night. He spread his hands like, “What now?”

Markus just maintained the eye contact as he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Dance Dance Revolution! The game that defined a generation! Take yours home tonight, folks!...”

Markus sauntered off, shouting over the crowd like a barker at a fair. Gavin found some tiny glimmer of will and continued to work the register. This was at least, better than Markus moping.

Then techno filled the air. It completely blotted out the Christmas music filtering in from the street.

“Oh, for fuck’s—hang on just a second.” Gavin left the customer hanging as he jumped over the counter and stormed through the shop. The crowd had somehow gotten a lot thicker?

“So you just connect this here,” a familiar voice was saying, and Gavin looked down at a pair of asses that he didn’t really want to see sticking out from behind one of his bigger TVs.

“Tina, what the hell are you doing?”

“Heyyyy!” Tina stood up from where she had been plugging cords into one of Gavin’s old TVs. A suspicious number of DDR pads on the floor glowed as Markus continued to plug them in. “Did you know your fake boyfriend can dance?”

“He can’t,” Gavin said. “Markus, get back to work—”

“I am working,” Markus said. “Or, I will be. And I never said I couldn’t dance. I was just telling Tina I’ve got all the popular dances going back to about 1850.”

“You could be helping,” Gavin complained to Tina. “Rather than trying to blow his cover. He’s supposed to be human.”

“Oh you’re pretty much ruining that on your own,” Tina said. “You should try not to order him around so much. Be nicer to him!”

“Agreed,” Markus said.

Gavin narrowed his eyes. “You two are conspiring against me.”

“Hey, would you rather dance with me?” Tina said, starting to jive in a decidedly uncool fashion.

Gavin groaned. “…Fine. Whatever. Keep him out of trouble.”

He stormed back to the register and watched over his customers’ heads as Tina showed Markus the basics of the game. Despite Markus’ boasts he was absolute shit at it, which filled Gavin with a small sense of pride in the human race. Of course, Markus got better the more he danced.

“That your boyfriend over there giving Tina a run for her money?”

Gavin quickly got his eyes unglued from Markus’ hopping ass and startled when Hank filled his view instead. “He thinks he can sell one by the end of the night,” he managed. “Fat chance What do you want?”

The Lieutenant just smiled and dropped handfuls of the ornaments on the counter. “Thought I’d get them for all the androids at the station.”

“Why? Robocops never last long.” Hank’s mouth made a line, which Gavin felt a tiny bit guilty about. “Where is your plastic pet, anyway?”

“Oh, uh, watching the parade. To be honest I’m just glad to get away from Jingle Bells on repeat.”

“You and everyone else, apparently.” He hoped that was the only reason the shop had filled up and not the supermodel currently busting a move to Waka Laka.

Fuck, he was ogling Markus again. He punched Hank’s purchases into the register with particular ill will toward men and androids, but Hank still laughed at him.

“Get over there, I’ll take over a while,” Hank said. He was already taking off his coat and tossing it beside the register.

“You’re not everyone’s dad, Hank,” Gavin muttered. He was already hopping over the counter again.

He arrived just as Markus finished to a round of cheers.

“Mind if I cut in?” he growled.

Markus whirled around. “Can she be my human overlord instead?”

“Go help Hank with the line!” Gavin snapped at him, and stomped onto the DDR mat.

“No way!” Tina grinned. “I wanna see you two dance!”

Markus and Gavin looked at each other. “I don’t think that’s—” Markus said, which was more tactful than Gavin’s “Hell no!”

“You want to sell these things, right?” She grinned at Markus. “Don’t let him scare you, he’s never actually shot an android.”

“How specific,” Markus said, but by then Tina had already disappeared towards the pet shop with plans to visit Atraxas/Cheez-Its. Markus glanced at Gavin before moving to obey Gavin’s last order. Gavin took one look at the crowd eagerly waiting for the next number and knew he was doomed.

“One song,” Gavin told him. “That’s it.”

He got one of Markus’ signature smiles for that. Gavin picked Sandstorm and they started to dance side-by-side.

“Didn’t think you’d be good at this,” Markus said.

“Tina’s my friend,” Gavin said, concentrating on the arrows on the screen but not that closely. He always did this song. When it finished he put on Speed Over Beethoven and changed the settings. “You take those mats, I’ll take these.”

“Two mats?”

“You want to sell these, right?” Gavin grinned as Markus looked down at the mats, and hit go.

…An unknowable time passed, either because Gavin was sucked into a black hole or he just got really fixated on dancing with an android that wasn’t obviously leagues better than him like Tina. Good enough to swap places with him a couple times mid-song. They spun back and forth like it was electro-swing night at the club (Markus’ hands were huge and weirdly soft). But not good enough to make him look bad. Was that on purpose? Gavin had no idea what kind of subroutines androids so that they acted approachable, without any of the self-esteem-related complexes humans had.

Eventually they had to stop, because someone bought the last two DDR mats, as well as several other dance game setups he had including a very expensive DanceRush Stardom setup collecting dust in the back—at least until he and Markus took it for a spin. Which was like, way more than Gavin hoped to move in five years, let alone one night. And more fun that Gavin had in years.

“That was fun!” Markus’ eyes were so bright Gavin had to laugh at him. “Kind of wish you hadn’t sold them all, I wouldn’t mind the practice.”

“Yeah, why aren’t you, like, perfect at it?”

“Everything takes practice. And…” he glanced around but the crowds left with the last of the DDR mats. Shit, it was almost eleven. “I’m still trying to look the part I’m supposed to be playing.”

“Well—you did good.” He went to the register to find Hank’s little pet android trying to wake up the Lieutenant behind the register, which Gavin allowed because he was in a good mood. He collected the money for the last DDR and grinned at the register drawer, which was entirely empty of change and entirely full of large bills. A good problem to have, and one for later Gavin to deal with. He shut it, delighted that a few bills even caught in the locking mechanism—

“So,” Markus said, as soon as Hank and his android left, “when are we going to see the parade?”

“Huh?” Gavin was still happily occupied trying to close the drawer. “The parade?”

“Yeah. We sold a lot more than one DDR set. Fair’s fair.”

“Dude, the parade’s been over for hours.”

Markus looked out the windows, blinking when all he saw was the empty street, a few straggler shoppers. “But—you said…”

“I had to say something to get you off my ass.” Gavin laughed, then felt something heavy plunk in his chest. Uh oh. “Hey, you should have sold them faster if you really wanted to go!”

Markus said, “Ah,” quietly.

Gavin braced himself for yelling, maybe some insults. Hell, maybe Markus knew what gaslighting was and would call him out on that. He wasn’t going to say sorry, though.

Markus just stood there, staring at him.

“What?” Gavin snapped, then, “It’s just a stupid parade,” then, “You shouldn’t have kept bothering me!”

Markus nodded slowly. “I guess it’s better to know now what kind of person you are.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Markus eyelashes swept down as he looked at the floor. “No one apologizes to their microwave.”

“Right!” Gavin slammed the door of the register. He felt like the personification of a dumpster. “I’m gonna go shower,” he muttered. “Lock up and then sweep up or something.”

“Yes, Gavin.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Gavin snapped, “Just do it!”

Markus left to get the broom and Gavin stormed downstairs, slamming doors, getting tangled in his stupid clothes, almost breaking the faucet handle. He paced around in his shower a while trying to pick the soap he wanted. Markus used about half the bottle of the most expensive one, of course. He scrubbed with another scent that he thought kind of went along with the one Markus liked. Then washed again with his usual soap, which he used so much of he got some in his eye. He got changed into pajamas (the clean, nice ones not just a pair of boxer shorts, made a snack, then went to check on Markus—just to make sure he didn’t sabotage something in revenge. It took the app to find him.

Markus was curled up in one of the windows, obliterating his carefully-constructed window display. Atraxas Harbinger of Doom/Cheez-Its sat nearby watching him. The floors looked clean, at least. Gavin double-checked the door locks and security gates just in case.

“You’re fucking up the Battle of Sekigahara or whatever,” he observed.

Markus didn’t look away from the window. “This isn’t Harrod’s.”

True. Markus sort of made it feel like Harrod’s, though. Occasionally. He kicked the edge of the display—just with his toe, careful not to smash anything else. “I didn’t mean to, Freckles.”

“I know.”

Gavin wondered if that was some thinly-veiled slight insult. He picked up the blue little Furby and passed her from hand to hand. “Quit moping, alright?”

Markus turned to look at him. Gavin balked a little at what he saw there.

Fine. He pulled out his phone and searched  for the light parade—like, the bigger one in New York. “Here, watch.” He hit go on the first video and stood on the edge of the display, turning the screen toward the idiot android. Said idiot watched like he was watching paint dry. Gavin managed about three minutes before he caved. “What?”

“It’s not the same.”

“What, you want our dinky little light parade?” Gavin took his phone back to search for the right one.

“I never said I wanted to see anything on your phone,” Markus said, cool as a goddamn cucumber.

“Well, fine!” Gavin shoved his phone in his pocket. “I didn’t want to show you, anyway! Teach me to try being nice!”

Markus pressed his mouth into a line that was decidedly expectant. “Is there anything else you need tonight, Gavin?”

“Would you cut it out with that? Shut down, or whatever!”

Markus’ eyes flashed, but only briefly. His LED blinked, and he went motionless, still hugging his knees. A Still Life of disappointment. Not that there was anything alive about Markus, and his guilt trip was all to subtly mold Gavin into a model consumer, probably.

Gavin stomped downstairs again and lay in bed for five minutes, Markus’ stupid flashing eyes haunting his dreams. Nobody had eyes that flashed. Just romance novel heroines and Markus the android, apparently. It probably had something to do with his eyes. No eye plate should have cost that much, even for an old-model android. Gavin heard about custom androids built like Faberge eggs with eyes like the rose windows of Notre Dame. Another version of Gavin, like that guy with the android repair internet videos, might have sealed Markus behind glass. Gavin never put anything behind glass. CD changers and Tamagotchis and lightsabers were meant to be out of the box.

He got up, changed out of his pajamas, and put on all his layers, swearing all the way. He stomped up the stairs so loudly that he put their structural integrity in danger. He grabbed Markus’ unprotesting face rather than cradled it and poked until he found the button.

“Put this on,” he ordered, before Markus even opened his eyes. He shoved a woolly hat into Markus’ hands, then went to unlock the door.

Gavin at least liked the street better without the crowds. And all the lights were still up, a few of the parade floats parked by the giant Christmas tree at the end of the street. Once Markus got the idea what they were doing Gavin let him take the lead—within reason, and he didn’t explicitly say it so he was probably still technically leading. He kept his hands in his pockets and didn’t complain about the cold or the fact that he had to get up at stupid o’clock tomorrow. He tried not to pick on Markus for feedback either. He just watched Markus observe the lights from under the thick hat, which Gavin didn’t tell him to do. Looking at pretty lights: what part of the program was responsible for that? Might as well ask what humans liked it so much for, too.

They got to the giant-ass Christmas tree at the end and stared up at it a while. Gavin danced foot-to-foot as the cold got to him. Markus just stood there staring. It was kind of creepy. The glow of the golden light on his cheeks and glitter in his eyes did make him look his full worth, though.

“How much did Carl pay for you?” Gavin asked.

Markus’ glance sent an instant heat wave into Gavin’s chest, woosh. “He didn’t pay anything. I was a gift.”

“Ha. Figures.”

Markus smiled too. Woosh. “Gavin, is that a compliment?”

Gavin, who had been attempting just that, said, “Nah, I figure they couldn’t turn a profit on you.”

Markus laughed, which was probably not genuine. More programs designed to get positive reactions from him. Gavin refused to be moved.

Human subconscious was easier to manipulate, though, since he forgot to shut Markus down again when he got back and had vivid dreams about Markus dancing under strings of Christmas lights.

*

It wasn’t the last time Gavin went to bed late and slept bad with Markus around. They reached some kind of weird truce over the next few days: Gavin telling Markus to do things, Markus doing them, and not much else. Gavin kept looking up dance videos and dance clubs and almost showing Markus, but he stopped himself just in time, just in case Markus let slip that he’d been to see ballet in Russia or something, which Gavin and DDR could not compete with. It was better when they didn’t talk. Kept things straight in his mind. Markus required checking in and conversation about as much as the smart fridge in the front of the store.

So he felt no obligation to let Markus know when it was one in the morning and he was still up, keeping vigil with Atraxas Harbinger of Doom AKA Cheez-Its. She was making a grinding noise that wouldn’t stop, and couldn’t open her eyes anymore—and that was just the start. The Furby’s skin lay empty to one side like a sad little ghost, and he had various screws and plates and wires strewn out over the workshop table. The grinding got worse no matter what he tried. WD-40. Tightening screws. Loosening rust. He might be able to fix her pieces but not before lost all power and by then it’d be too late, she’d forget all her words. She wouldn’t be Atraxas Harbinger of Doom, not Cheez-Its, anymore.

“Gavin?”

Gavin’s head snapped up to see Markus standing in the doorway. He didn’t come downstairs without Gavin’s orders. Gavin sniffed and looked away. “Didn’t I tell you to—”

“I finished organizing the tapes. What’s wrong?”

Likely fucking story, he’d have to check later. He was gearing up to yell but the Furby started clicking instead of grinding. Probably trying to say something. Gavin rubbed her beak. “She’s—she’s breaking herself apart. I can’t figure it out.” He adjusted one of the gears and the clicking continued. Gavin stomped his foot like a little kid. “Fucking cheap kids toys plastic!” His voice squeaked at the end and he wanted to run around the block, except it was freezing and probably the oldest Furby he’d ever had the pleasure to meet was dying in his hands.

Markus continued to stand there quietly, though Gavin couldn’t read his expression—his vision was all smeary. It was just the light. Those stupid reading glasses. He threw them down and pinched the bridge of his nose to make the wetness go away. “What?”

“Let me try something.” Markus didn’t wait for an answer before he stepped up to the little electrical creature and put his hand over it. Gavin wanted to protest but he was too busy trying to not cry. After about ten seconds, he lifted his hand.

The clicking had stopped. Gavin’s shoulders slumped until a small squeak emerged from the little yellow beak, followed by a long wail.

“I broke a couple connections to non-functioning circuit boards.” Markus said. “So you can replace the broken parts without damaging her software. Eyes and ears will be out of commission until then, but…”

“What?” Gavin didn’t care that his voice was scratchy that time. He slowly righted the Furby. “You fixed her?”

“More just—kept her from dying? But she’ll be okay until then.”

“How did you do that?”

“I’ve, uh, interfaced with a lot of androids,” he said, and did not elaborate further. In fact he got up to leave.

“Wait!” Gavin almost tripped over his chair. He wiped his nose as Markus turned. “I-I didn’t tell you to do that.”

“You did not.”

Gavin pushed tears off his face. “This doesn’t change anything. I’m not going to just let you go.”

“I know.”

“I can…like, give you something else, maybe,” Gavin mumbled. “You, uh, you want anything else?”

“I didn’t do it so you’d give me something. It’s just…what we owe to each other, you know?”

“I don’t owe you anything.” 

“…It’s a title of a book,” Markus said with a small laugh.

“A book?” Well that killed Gavin’s grateful mood though sheer boredom. Good. “You read?”

“I used to. Most of my literature database was stored on a server.” He left, and Gavin briefly considered buying a copy of that book, and maybe a less moldy version of that Shakespeare brick Markus had admired, too. Then he came to his senses and focused on removing Atraxas' faulty circuits.

He was still thinking about it though, when he got up the next morning and smelled Markus cooking bacon. He forgot that he told Markus to do that. He definitely didn’t tell Markus to do it shirtless. It made sense once he thought about it, given he hadn’t really offered Markus use of the washing machine and plastic didn’t feel pain the same way, maybe. He watched the android for a few seconds.

“Your model can simulate eating,” he said. “Right? Taste buds and everything." He never found a manual for Markus' model but his repairs revealed he had the equipment for it.

“Oh.” Markus moved like he wanted to cover up the red duct tape on his chest before he decided to leave it. “Um—yes, that’s correct.”

Gavin frowned at the perfectly-cooked bacon in the pan and said, “Make enough so you can have some, if you want.” He fled back to his bedroom to do his workout so he didn’t have to face whatever reaction Markus had to this news. Maybe it was another smile. He wondered if Markus owed him that or not.

Chapter Text

“What’re you wearing?”

Gavin pretended disinterest with the dedication of a manga heroine. “Just a jacket. You blind?” Of course it wasn’t just a jacket. Gavin wasn’t a total slob; he had a few vintage pieces that had slowly ever since his retirement from the DPD migrated further and further back in his closet. So what if Markus’s mall wardrobe got some of them to resurface? A silk bomber jacket was nothing special really, even if it was from the 80s and previously housed in a garment bag. He still got a weird warm blossom in his chest that Markus mentioned it.

“I might be now.” Markus put up his hands as Gavin wheeled on him. “In a good way!”

“Yeah, well.” Gavin sniffed, possibly just to make sure his nice cologne was still smellable. “Gotta make sure we’re believable.”

Markus’ smile almost began to smolder. “For a second I thought you were trying to impress me.”

Gavin scoffed. Markus was wearing some of the slacks from the mall which dressed up his t-shirt a little too much. He looked like a CEO after a long day at the office. Gavin never dated a CEO. Yeah, there was no impressing that.

“Come on,” he said, “I wanna get takeout.”

He drove Markus to his favorite bar for dinner, which he stopped visiting for fear of running into any old work colleagues aside from Tina. But maybe he didn’t mind people seeing Markus in his company, or his nice jacket that hopefully made him look cool and/or tall. He waited at the bar for his order, watching the game until a flash of movement caught his eye on the patio. What he thought was a scarecrow dressed up in the bar’s rival team jersey was actually an android tied to the iron fence with wire. Some drunks throwing darts thought it’d be funny to throw them at the android instead. The android caught some of them out of the air with his one free hand, but not all. He watched as the drunks attempted to collect their darts, and the android ripped a dart out of his shoulder and hurled it back as hard as he could, narrowly missing his target.

Then the drunk threw a beer bottle at the android’s head.   

Jesus. He knew this was a bar for jackasses, but--

Gavin turned quickly away as the waiter returned for his payment.

“Gavin,” Markus said, dangerously low.

“Leave it.” Gavin hastily signed the receipt. “None of our business.” He might have said more but a growing roar of delight as the drunks started to smack the android around didn’t let him. The android didn’t make any noise, probably couldn’t. Gavin collected his bag of fish and chips and hurried out. Gavin wasn’t a cop anymore and he’d seen worse. It was just an android.

“Gavin.” Markus’ hand caught his arm. Fucking just what he needed. “We can’t just—"

“Shut up,” Gavin said, and shook Markus off him. “Come on, get in.” A few moments later and they were out on the highway heading home. Markus sat next to him, trembling, breathing hard through his nose. Fake breathing? Androids didn’t breathe. Gavin didn’t just walk away from assault.

“I once saw an android’s head get knocked off,” Gavin said, for no discernable reason. Markus didn’t even look at him, just kept clenching and unclenching his fists. “I’m sure you’ve seen worse, too.”

Markus said nothing. Whatever, Gavin could handle the silent treatment. It wasn’t until he parked the car that he realized Markus’ silence was because of his order.

*

Gavin got up in the middle of the night to piss. That was the only reason he discovered Markus was gone.

“Shit,” he said, with no feeling, just standing there in his antique shop which didn’t feel empty but the app couldn’t lie, Markus was not within range of his phone, not in the shop. He looked around anyway, his endocrine system finally waking up as he did so.  He looked in ever smaller circles until he stopped in the middle of the electronic armory and stared at the floor, holding his hair back with his hands. It was either that or throw up. Which was ridiculous, Markus was just plastic and if he went missing, well, this plan to impress Kamski was stupid to begin with.

Except that the android was registered under his name now and anything he did came back to Gavin. It was like that time he didn’t put the parking break on and his car ended up in someone’s living room.

No, it was like the time his cat got out when he was a kid.

Why did he feel this urge to categorize his interactions with Markus, anyway?

He was spiraling, caught in a loop of panic. Rookie mistake. He got to the rank of detective before he left. He knew better. Lay out the probable explanations, come up with a plan.

Okay, so…maybe someone maybe stole him? Yeah right, there wasn’t even a busted window and Markus didn’t have the keys. So he just… got out somehow. Well, he could be anywhere if so, out of the range of his phone and without net access switched on there was no telling—

Gavin scrunched his eyes shut as he scrambled to pull out his phone again.

“Oh, you plastic idiot…”

*

Gavin arrived back at the bar. The drunks were still on the patio though the bar had closed, and were now facing off against everyone’s favorite fucking freckled moron. Said moron had stupidly interposed himself between the drunks and the android still hanging from the fence. The idiot was not holding his own— there were five of the drunk fucks, after all, and CyberLife codes probably stopped him from doing basic shit like throwing a punch at a bully.

Gavin barely got the car into park before he leapt out and ran at them with a Rock Band 4 electric guitar held over his head.

“Get the fuck off of him!” Gavin yelled, and swung blindly at the drunks until he got some breathing room between them and Markus. Thank God for low-class bars where no one could be bothered to put up a security camera.

“That your android?” the braver of the drunks protested, once he saw his buddies still outnumbered them. “He was trying to mess with our scarecrow—"

“Does he look like a fucking android to you?” Gavin pointed at Markus’ temple, ignoring the fact that Markus was holding his hand over a nose that was definitely bleeding the wrong color.

“I can handle this, Gavin—” Markus growled, glaring at Gavin like he was the moron in this situation and maybe he was. But Gavin was nothing if not the champion growler, in every situation.

“Get in the goddamn car! Now!”

Markus, once again in the range of his phone and its commands, immediately obeyed.

“We saw him connect with it!” one of the other drunks said, though he looked less sure as he swayed on his feet and probably got a good look at Gavin’s shirtless muscles. God, there was ice on the ground and he was in boxer shorts and crocs, he wasn’t even cold… “Probably turning him into one of those—those killer robots—"

“You’re fucking high, dumbass!” Gavin snarled. “You want me to call the cops? Get the hell out of here!”

The drunks fled, giving Gavin room to get the hell out of there. He slammed the car door and peeled out of the parking lot. He was pretty sure there weren’t any cameras. Not that he saw, anyway. That broken android couldn’t have been recording much…

The car engine was unusually loud. Gavin lay off the gas and flipped on the radio, then flipped it off again. He ran his fingers through his hair again. “You alright?”

“…Yeah.” Markus’ voice was muffled a little by his hand and the blood now dripping on his  cute CEO slacks. Did blue blood come out in the wash like regular blood? Markus lowered his hand and wiped a stripe of bright blue across his pale shirt. “Not that I need to explain myself to you, but I was just trying to—”

“Do me a favor.” Gavin reached in the center console and pulled out a bunch of fast-food napkins which he threw at Markus like the world’s most fucked-up snowball. “Don’t talk for a bit.”

They drove home in silence. Gavin parked the car and they sat there in the cooling cabin for a few moments. Markus, as instructed, said nothing.  

“How’d you get out?”

Markus stared straight ahead out the windshield. “I used your fingerprint to unlock your phone while you were sleeping.”

“Oh, great, that’s just—” he held his phone to his lips and spoke into it so the command was clear, “Never touch my phone again. Seriously, how does that command not come standard?”

“Some humans want their androids to operate their phones for them and—”

“That was rhetorical!” Gavin was working himself up again but he let it happen this time, slamming doors and slapping keys his keys down on the counter once they were inside.

“How did you find me?” Markus asked. His nose stopped bleeding, leaving a blaze from his nose down his chin and onto his shirt like a racing stripe. His hands were covered in blue blood, probably not just his own. All scrunched up his face looked like an angry cat on a nature show. Gavin didn’t know what he saw in the idiot.

“Oh, nothing, Marco, just the fucking internet to the rescue.” He fumbled with his phone to turn off Markus’ net access. Of course the damage had been done. He’d probably get all kinds of creepily-specific ads from CyberLife now: Buy an android pet to replace your Furbies! Upgrade your android, this one comes in a crop top and doesn’t try to get itself killed!

“I didn’t even need to turn it on,” he muttered, skin crawling, “I knew you were gonna pull a stunt like that, I fucking knew it! What were you trying to do, aside from get yourself killed?—”

“I was trying to free him!” Markus said, his voice rising yet still somehow maintaining control.  “They were torturing him, and you just stood there—“

“You think you’re some kind of guardian angel out to save your people? No wonder you androids are enslaved, you’re all dumbasses!” He caught his breath. What was he doing, yelling at a computer? He hadn’t done that since grade school. He pointed. “Go—go stand in the corner!”

Markus’s face burned red, then he spun on his heel and went to stand in the corner of the kitchen. Gavin yanked on his hair.

“What the hell am I gonna do with you, huh?”

Markus didn’t respond. Gavin sighed and stormed around for a while, putting shit away that he scattered around looking for Markus, brushing his teeth again, basically anything to keep from answering that question. Eventually he went back to the kitchen for a cup of milk or something, all the adrenaline made him hungry. Markus was standing close to the fridge though so he settled for chips instead. He ate a few, angrily. Then a few more, less angrily and more regretfully. He looked down at the chips then went over to where Markus stood. He regarded the back of Markus’ head for a couple seconds before reaching for the nape of his neck.

Markus immediately flinched. “Don’t touch me—”

“Your tag was sticking out, dummy!” He shouldn’t have said dummy. “Sorry! Just—you’re really stressing me out!”

“How do you think I feel?” Markus asked the wall.

“You’re not supposed to feel anything!” Gavin told the back of Markus’ head. “You’re an android! Androids don’t feel.”

“Hate to destroy your worldview, but I feel a lot.”

“Well—then maybe try to feel a little bit grateful, I saved your ass back there…” Markus laughed, and Gavin poked him in the shoulder. “Listen, those guys were gonna kill you!”

“Oh, and this is so much better, Gavin.” Which, okay, that hurt a little. Markus just shook his head and muttered, “Trucker,” under his breath.

Gavin slammed the bag of chips down on the counter. “Alright, that’s it.” He took out his phone again and turned Markus’ clean filter off. “If we’re gonna have it out you might as well be able to swear at—”

“Fucker,” Markus amended. “You’re an insensitive, narcissistic asshole that’s probably stuck in the past because you peaked in high school and failed at everything since. You deserve to be alone, and I live in hope that everyone you know and respect finds out that the only lover you can secure is a prisoner in his own goddamn body. You’re a bullying, imbecilic—”

“Alright, that’s enough!”

There was a click as Markus’ teeth slammed together.

“You’re…articulate, I’ll give you that.” Gavin paced a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “And you tell yourself you’ve got it together, but you don’t. You let shit get to you just like anyone else.”

Markus said nothing, of course.

“I just—” Okay, so everything Markus said was true. Might as well come clean, too. What did it matter, Markus wasn’t real. He leaned against the wall near where Markus stood. He let his head knock against the wall, and chose not to compare this twisting in his chest to losing his phone or wandering around his neighborhood with ‘Lost Cat’ posters. He just said, “You scared the fuckin’ hell out of me.”

Markus looked down at him out of the corner of his eye. Gavin felt his ears burn.

“You can—stop standing there.”

Markus finally faced him. They considered each other for a second.

“So,” Gavin looked up at Markus, his hands on his hips. “What do you want to do?”

*

Gavin took a last fortifying slurp on the straw of his soda, then slammed the car door, breathing out through his mouth. “Don’t expect me to work miracles. I can’t do everything.”

“I don’t expect you to do anything,” Markus assured him.

“It might be—you know—dead?”

“Won’t know until we try.”

Gavin checked his watch as they walked back over to the bar patio. It was four in the morning, two hours before anyone would be around. The drunks were long gone but the android was still there. The android didn’t respond as they walked up to it.

“We need to stabilize his systems before we try taking him down.” Gavin got out his toolkit. “Just keep it—” he glanced at the android, “Him—calm.” He put a screwdriver in his mouth. “Hold my phone.”

The first hour past.

“Okay, just—hold that line—” Gavin, who couldn’t wear gloves for such delicate work, blew on his fingers before adjusting one of the fasteners on the new thirium line. Fuck, since when did he get numb fingers like some old man?

Without a word Markus took his hand and put it in his armpit.

“Dude, what the fuck—”

“I can heat my chassis,” Markus muttered, and just like that heat was flooding through Gavin’s skin. He almost winced at the intensity of it but when Markus let his hand go his fingers were working better.

Another hour passed. He stopped the bleeding, gave the android a thirium flush, sealed off the non-functional systems in his head and arm. The android struggled but Markus whispered to him and he went still. The repair video ate through a lot of his data but when he was done the android at least wasn’t going to break down immediately. He cut the wire carefully, and like a fish freed from a hook the android kicked both of them to the curb and sprinted away into the darkness.

Gavin rubbed a scraped elbow, then walked back to the car. Markus followed, and they sat in silence for a few minutes while Gavin warmed up. He’d grabbed pants and a jacket but that was it. He blew hot air onto his hands then stuck his fingers in the heater vents. “Anything that android does is my fault, y’know. Aside from the bar if they caught us on camera. That’s, like, theft. Vandalism at least.”

Markus nodded.

“And those drunks probably have androids of their own. If they don’t fuck with that one they’ll fuck with another.”

“I know.” Markus glanced at Gavin. “You’re…more complicated than I thought.”

Gavin never considered himself particularly complicated. Though Markus, having spent his previous life fluffing pillows for an old man, probably had his bar set particularly low. “You can just say thanks.”

“My family threw me out,” Markus said instead. Gavin glanced at him and the android quickly looked out the window. “I mean—my owner. Carl. I woke up in a landfill.”

Gavin took another drink of his soda. When Tina told him about shit at work it was just like this, out of the blue. She told him to not ask about details. Details weren't the point. He said, knowing it sounded lame, “That sucks, man.”

Markus shrugged. “I just wanted to give him a chance. Thanks for helping me.”

Gavin hunched in his seat. “Yeah, well—I hate the idea of electronics going to waste.”

Markus huffed. “That makes two of us.”

“Hey—don’t start thinking I’m on your side or something. I’m your horrible human overlord!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t forget.”

“I just—you know, it makes up for fixing my Furby, right? We’re even now.”

“We’re not ever going to be even.”

“Yeah, well…just a couple more weeks, alright?” Markus didn’t look at all convinced. Gavin sighed and took another pull at his soda, then touched it to Markus’ arm. After a second the android took the Styrofoam cup, and sipped.

The cup rattled with the sound of an empty slurp.

“Oh.” Gavin winced. "Sorry."

“Seriously, you drank it all?”

“This was a stressful night, okay! Can I do anything else for you?”

Markus watched him, a smile playing on his lips before he reached for the radio, a second later the cabin filling with loud blasts of--

“Classical music?” Gavin whined. “Oh, come on—hey, get your feet down, you’re scuffing the leather—damn, I can’t take you anywhere…!”

Chapter Text

“Freckles!” Gavin sighed and started to get up. “Mark—!” Then his back spasmed.

Of course that was when Markus decided to show. “You need something?”

Gavin did his best to look cool as he sat on the floor of the photo booth rubbing his back. “Does this place look, like, inviting, or whatever?”

The photobooth had needed sprucing up for years, though it looked more the eyesore than usual next to Markus’ fantastical window displays. Currently the front window had been done up in an elaborate cave scene made of old TV tubes and lava lamps, explored by spelunking robot hamsters (at least until they could bring Atraxas/Cheez-Its out of her medically-induced coma); the photo booth didn’t have a chance.

Markus leaned inside, basically just showing off his manufactured triceps. Gavin probably should have gotten out of the booth first. He scrambled up, but too late, the big stupid android made himself at home and trapped him in.

“The seat’s more comfortable,” he complimented. “And I like the paint.”

“You spend your weirdo all-nighters in here or what?” Sure, he could climb over Markus, but Gavin was 99% sure he sat in paint earlier and did not want to advertise.

“Sometimes. I couldn’t get it to work, though. Would you show me?”

Gavin sighed, rolled his eyes, and groaned (the triple threat) but Markus continued to just sit there looking interested and that was hard to resist even with an entire arsenal of passive aggression. He reached over Markus, hoping his abs were appreciated as he touched his phone to the reader. The screen started a countdown. “Say antique,” Gavin said, and of course the camera caught his wince instead of his smile. Antique. In case he needed any more reminding what he was an old man in need of Icy Hot patches for his lumbago. At least he wasn’t the only antique in the booth.

“Neat!” Markus said.

“Great.” The countdown for the second picture started, and Gavin elbowed Markus to shift him.

“Could do with some props though,” Markus said, ignoring him. “Funny hats. Mistletoe.”

“Huh?”

“You know.” Markus leaned over and kissed him just as the camera flashed. Gavin jumped back so fast he hit the booth wall.

“There’s a reason to close the curtain after all,” Markus said, playing with said curtain which was conspicuously open. Gavin looked to see if anyone saw, then pointed at Markus with baleful intent. He did not rub his mouth, like it was a baseball injury you were not allowed to touch.

“Never do that again.”

“Just practicing,” Markus said, ‘innocently’.

The last flash of the camera caught his glare and Markus’ grin. “I could make some props, if you want?”

“I don’t want anything else from you.” He imagined taking Markus to the dollar store and picking out cutesy props with utmost solemnity, grabbing a big set of fake lips on a stick just to prove how chill he was with getting his first kiss from an android. Markus would make no comment, the tactful bastard, but Gavin could dream that he’d at least look impressed.

He snatched the photo strip out of the printer and tore it in half.

“Don’t you want to keep that?” Markus asked, apparently not taking the hint. Gavin started to climb over him to escape, paint-on-ass or no. “For evidence?”

“Like that would make good evidence.” Gavin paused in half-sprawl over Markus. “Should we make evidence?”

Markus shrugged, innocently. “It’ll look a little weird to your friends if there’s no signs of me in your life.”

Damn, he had a point. Gavin touched his phone to the reader again and resumed his seat. “Okay.” He shook out his hands and cracked his neck. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

“This isn’t the Olympics,” Markus said, putting an arm around him.

“Just shut up and smile.” At the last second he put his hand on Markus’ leg, and the camera flash caught the heat racing up his neck.

“You have a nice smile, Gavin.”

Gavin silently pretended Markus couldn’t read his pulse just by looking.

“What next?”

Gavin flipped off the camera as he gave Markus a quick peck on the cheek. The stubble was a surprise. he knew it was there objectively, but the soft cheek and the expensive body wash altogether was a whole experience.

“Last one.” Markus didn’t go after him for another kiss, though. Gavin turned to him and sat up so they were nose-to-nose.

“…Have you even brushed your teeth?”

Markus smiled against his lips. “Have you?”

The camera flashed; Gavin fled before their lips touched. He snatched the little strip of pictures, then against his better judgement, held them out for Markus to see.

“These are good.” Markus said, with annoying certainty.

“I guess you’re pretty used to being in front of a camera.” Not that Gavin was remotely interested.

“Sure. This is a little different, taking it with someone, rather than…” Markus realized he was curling the edge of the strip and handed it back. “I’m sure your friends will like them.”

“You keep saying ‘friends.’ Tina already knows and I’m clearly already fooling Hank. Eli’s the only other person I talk to so we’re just fooling him.”

“…Humans need at least sixteen friends for emotional stability.”

“Where’s it say that?” Gavin found this was generally a good retort with so much of Markus’ knowledge in files not found. “Not like you have that many friends, either. I mean, did you have any in your fancy mansion?”

Markus stuck his tongue in his cheek, and whatever witty rapport they developed evaporated as Markus made a close examination of Gavin’s paint job. “You can probably guess.”

Well, that was… vulnerable.

“Yeah, between nude modeling and mixing Metamucil you probably didn’t get out much,” Gavin said, to be a jackass and also to give Markus somewhere to direct his disappointment rather than inward. “Whataya need friends for, anyway?”

With that he climbed out of the booth, and promptly called Tina as soon as he was out of earshot.

“Bitch, when are we hanging out?” Tina complained.

Gavin laughed and dropped the second photo strip on a table, to put into the pocket of whatever jacket he wore for the party. “Sure. Tonight?”

“K. I’m bringing stuff for that Velveeta chicken thing. And my Furby needs troubleshooting.”

“Anything for Velveeta.” He checked to make sure Markus was still far away in the booth. “Is it okay if Markus hangs out with us? He probably won’t want to, but...”

“Why?”

“I dunno. He likes you.” He still had the torn-up strip, the one that captured Markus kissing him. He happened to tear through his own face but Markus was still visible. With absolutely nowhere else in the entirety of Reed’s Records and collectibles to put it, he carefully tucked the pieces into his wallet. When he looked up Markus was trying to interface with the booth to get it to take more pictures of him. Vain bastard. “You still got that box of manga you’re tryin’ to get rid of?”

“Yeah? What does that have to do with your android?”

“Bring ‘em,” Gavin said, and if he was smiling it probably wasn’t the kind Markus would call ‘nice’.

*

Markus’ gaze immediately trained on the big crate of worn paperbacks as Tina hauled them through the door. He immediately stepped forward to help.

“I got it.” Gavin snatched the box first. “I gave you the evening off, right?”

“That doesn’t have much meaning when I have nowhere to go and nothing to do,” Markus said.

“That’s gratitude for you,” Gavin told Tina.

“Heya, android,” Tina said, and dug her Furby out of the depths of her puffy jacket. “Think you can teach her how to stop cursing like a tiny pink sailor?”

“Only if you want to,” Gavin made sure to say.

Markus looked down at the Furby in his hands, then back at the books. “I’ll…take a look, I guess—”

“Cool.” Gavin watched him stare at the books for three full seconds before he said, “Unless you prefer to hang out with us.”

Markus startled and hurried upstairs.

“I know that look,” Tina said, with clear accusation. “What are you planning?”

Gavin just shrugged and entertained Tina by showing her pictures of Furby customizations while she unpacked the groceries and started cooking. He pretended not to notice when, maybe ten minutes later, Markus came back down the stairs.

“I fixed her,” he said, setting the Furby down, conveniently, near the crate of manga.

“Yep. Thanks.” Gavin didn’t look up from his phone, and presently heard footsteps on the stairs again.

Tina narrowed her eyes once he left. “Hey, I’m pretty sure your android just took—”

“Wait for it,” Gavin held up a finger, counted in his head to twenty, then silently beckoned her to follow. This was his place of residence a longer time than Markus. He knew where all the squeaky floorboards were. He showed Tina where to step as he crept silently upstairs, all the way to the photo booth. The curtain was shut but he peeked through a gap and spied Markus curled up inside, a stolen volume of manga against his knees, avidly turning pages. Gavin grinned at Tina, then cleared his throat loudly just before he flung back the curtain.

“Whatcha doin’, Margot?”

“Nothing,” Markus said, way too quickly, smoothing his hair, his other hand tucked suspiciously behind his back.

“Nothing, huh?” Gavin watched Markus look anywhere but at Gavin and Tina. It made it quite easy for Gavin to reach behind Markus’ back and snatch the hidden volume.

“What the hell is this?” Gavin snarled, waving the book in Markus’ face.

Markus glared back, face as red as terracotta. “Naruto, volume forty-two.” His nostrils flared and he stood to his full impressive height. “You never let me have anything to read—”

“Clearly! So you resort to stealing?”

“I was going to give it back—”

“I’ve heard enough! Guess I need to teach you a lesson, huh?” Gavin stormed out of the booth. “Markus, come!”

Markus came.

“Gavin,” Tina warned.

“He’s my android,” Gavin said, and marched downstairs where he dug out volume after volume of Naruto and shoved them into Markus’ hands. “First you read volume one, then two, then three…do I need to teach you how to count?”

“N-no—”

“Good! Then you show the seminal work of Japanese literature the respect it deserves and read it in order, you got it?” He smiled. “And tell me when you finish it, really interested to hear what you think—you’re gonna cry your eyes out like twenty times.”

For a second Markus looked like he was going to use his night off to sock Gavin in the jaw—an image which Gavin preserved for his sunset years by snapping a picture on his phone.

The android scrunched his eyes shut. “Fuck, I hate you so much!”

“Men,” Tina sighed, as Gavin finally burst out laughing. Tina’s delivery of a charley horse to his shoulder did nothing to stop him. “Seriously, that wasn’t even funny!”

“It was kind of funny,” Markus admitted, though it clearly pained him.

Gavin giggled, then gently poked the crate with his toe. “You read ‘em however you want, Freckles.”

“You’re a dead man walking, Gavin Reed,” Markus said, loading up on volumes like that mouse with the corn kernels in Cinderella.

“I guess gifts are kind of meaningless between us, huh?”

“Ah! You’re learning.” But Markus beamed and Gavin beamed back, and they stood there beaming at each other like a couple of blanked-out Furbies until Tina’s shout startled them.

“Let’s not forget whose manga they are! Hey, Markus, you wanna help me cook dinner?”

Markus immediately tensed. “You said it was my night off.”

Gavin just shrugged. “Still is.” He headed back into the kitchen. Given how he yanked Markus’ chain, he fully expected Markus to disappear for the rest of the night.

He still managed not to startle when, a few seconds later, Markus joined him.

“So, are you guys really making fake food?...”

“Wh—Velveeta is not fake! Goddamn, you are so bougie…!”

Cooking dinner with three people (yes, both Gavin and Markus found themselves playing sous chefs somehow) turned into a regular party, the likes of which Gavin had not attended since Eli’s last Christmas shindig. Markus seemed to have a lot more fun cutting veggies and shit when he wasn’t being told to do it. Gavin got a weird Silly String feeling in his guts whenever Markus talked to him. Gross. Weird? Definitely silly.

The gross feeling intensified when Tina only plated for two. Markus didn’t say anything but he got all quiet, looking around like a fucking wallflower slighted in a Jane Austen novel (not that Gavin would know, it wasn’t like Tina made him read the manga Pride and Prejudice). Totally stuck-up when you thought about it, as if he expected a portion when he just ate for fun.

“Gavin,” Tina said, “Normally your plate would be clean by now. It tastes okay, right?”

Gavin looked down at the noodles he was stirring around his plate. “Uh—” He pushed the plate toward Markus. “You want some of mine?”

Tina’s face scrunched up. “What? Androids eat?”

“He does.” It wasn’t Tina’s fault though, and Gavin hoped he was not turning funny colors as Markus batted his multi-colored eyes. “Come on, I already have a spare tire, I don’t need another.”

Markus gave him a glance over like he was calculating just how much he really had to spare, which sort of killed his spirit of generosity. “Eat, Maurice!...I mean, if you want to…”

*

“…So how do androids eat?” Tina asked. She and Gavin were staring at the bathroom door, where Markus disappeared after dinner. “Like how does it work…”

“Trust me,” Gavin said, “You don’t wanna know.” The door opened and they both were quick to pretend nonchalance as Tina made her goodbyes.

“I think you might pull this thing with Eli off,” Tina said as she zipped up her puffy coat. “You two act like an old married couple already.”

“Thanks.” That was almost certainly a compliment.

“More like newly-weds actually. It was kind of weird.” Tina got a concerned little crease in her forehead. “Just don’t get carried away, you know?”

Gavin scoffed. “Tina, it’s fine! He’s just an android.” He looked around for Markus though, just in case he overheard—but he already disappeared with his crate of manga. When Gavin looked back Tina was squinting at him like he just told her you read manga left-to-right. “What?”

She just shrugged and headed out.

*

As expected, Gavin got too hopped up on fun to sleep properly, and wandered the shop the next day in a kind of social interaction hangover. Markus was mostly MIA, scanning every pixel of Naruto. Gavin sat behind the register while waiting for closing time, just staring out the window at couples and families wandering by. He diagnosed the hollowness in his chest as either mild indigestion or severe loneliness. Maybe there was something to that ‘sixteen friends’ crap.

To stave off an existential crisis that he really didn’t need during the holidays, he sprawled on the sofa and put on the latest hack-and-slash movie as soon as the sun went down. He was about a half hour in before he noticed Markus creeping around the door to his bedroom.

“What?” Gavin snapped. Tina’s newlywed comment made him suddenly glad Markus spent the day in hiding.

“Just curious.” Markus drew himself up even as he squinted at the ground. Maybe he needed reading glasses, too. Maybe he didn’t, he looked kind of cute all squinty. Which was way too much thinking about Markus’ face. “My media database was stored on a server if you remember.”

“Did you finish Naruto already?”

“A man can only cry about fictional ninjas so many times in one day.” Markus risked another glance at the TV. “I used to have access to thousands of movies. Millions of books.” He then braced himself, possibly expecting Gavin to assign some chores to get rid of him.

Instead Gavin said, “Come here.”

Markus came over to the sofa. Gavin eyed him critically for a moment before he tucked his legs up. Making room.

“Sit.”

Markus sat. “Sit and what else?”

“Nothing else! You make me sound like a fucking creep!”

“You are a creep.”

“Hey, you’re the one that kissed me yesterday!” That got a laugh out of Markus and Gavin felt justified in stretching out again. “If you’re here you might as well give me a foot rub.”

“I thought you said nothing else.”

Gavin wiggled his toes and Markus after a moment picked one foot up and started to rub it, grinding his thumb into the instep. Arch? Whatever. Gavin’s spine turned into a limp noodle. “Shit. Where the hell did you learn that?”

“I told you, I cared for an old man.”

Gavin groaned as Markus’ hands heated up too. “This is unfair. You’re better at everything. How’s a human supposed to compete with this?”

“Right.”

Gavin grunted, and let Markus rub his feet for fifteen more minutes (okay maybe twenty) then forced himself to sit up. “Alright, your turn.”

The whole bullshit lonesome day was worth it for Markus’ dumbstruck face. “Uh—what?”

“Come on, I’m not gonna break ‘em!” He pulled Markus’ feet into his lap himself, carefully unlaced the fancy shoes, put aside his socks. Markus’ feet didn’t feel that much different from human ones, maybe a little more stiff, or Markus was just uptight. He remembered something from one of the android repair videos and brushed a finger along one of the connectors along the bottom of his foot.

Markus yelped, then pressed his hand to his mouth.

Gavin cocked his head. “You okay?”

“That’s—going to make it hard to watch the movie,” Markus said, his voice as taut as whatever shootout was happening on the TV that Gavin was now no longer paying any attention to.

“Markus, are you ticklish?”

Markus was silent a second too long and they both knew it. Gavin dug his knuckle into that connector and Markus shrieked a laugh. “Stop!”

Gavin lifted his hands and Markus snatched his feet back.

“Remind me to never take charity from a sociopath.”

“I stopped, didn’t I?” 

Markus held his feet in his hands, considering this, then slowly put them back in Gavin’s lap.

“…You know, it kind of defeats the purpose of saying 'no' to me if you say 'yes' a few seconds later.”

“I’m a work in progress. Be more gentle.”

Gavin rolled his eyes but didn’t try to screw around this time, even if avoiding that connector was basically impossible. The occasional kicks were worth it for the flashes of laughter. It did kill the mood of the movie, though, and Gavin spent the next half hour roasting it for Markus’ amusement.

“Don’t quit your day job,” Markus said as the credits rolled. He was lying there as limp as a puppy, possibly the first time Gavin had seen him really relaxed.

“Yeah, well, it’s what you get for kissing me yesterday.”

“At least I know how to kiss.”

Gavin laughed louder than he meant to and covered his mouth. “Yeah, I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.” Oh good, more accidental candor. This robot was going to be the death of him.

“You’ve never kissed?”

Gavin spread his hands. “Don’t let my ravishing exterior fool you.” This earned another laugh from Markus, and Gavin was so grateful for it he handed over the TV remote. “You pick.”

Markus didn’t need asking twice, and started flipping through the channels and apps as fast as the buttons allowed. Gavin could barely decide what to order at a restaurant. An android that knew what he wanted was pretty hot.

Markus landed on a square of bright pixels.

“Oh—that’s a video game,” Gavin said, a little self-consciously.

“Yeah. A Naruto video game.” Markus shrugged as he handed back the remote. “I figured a geek would know how to play…”

“Pff! I’ve platinumed it.”

“Yeah, but can you beat an android?”

“Uh, duh!”

“Guess I’ll have to take your word for it.” Markus graciously handed back the remote.

“…Alright, Freckles.” Gavin dug around under the sofa and pulled out a second controller, which he tossed to Markus. “Let’s see what you can do!”

He expected Markus’ eyes to light up, but this over everything else made him hesitate. “I shouldn’t.”

“Why the hell not?” Gavin asked as he set up multiplayer mode.

“The zombie game at the arcade, for starters.” Markus squeezed the controller. “Carl didn’t like it when I won. Or lost. Or tied.”

“Well, screw that. I have this game memorized, you don’t have net access, and I gave you the shitty controller. It’ll be fair enough.” He nudged Markus with his shoulder as he settled into the cushions. “Come on, let’s see what you got.”

Markus gave him a look like he did when they were rescuing that android at the bar. “I’m not going to hold back.”

“Why do you think I gave you the shitty controller?”

Markus gave him a slow faint smile, which meant Gavin got the drop on him and scored a few thousand extra points right at the start. Fairness after all did not in any way imply mercy.

Chapter Text

DAY ONE

“…So, how long is that gonna take?” Gavin rubbed his arm as he listened to the guy on the other end of the call. Was that draft always there? He definitely felt cold on his arm. Maybe that plastic stuff you put over windows to keep the heat in wasn’t a total gimmick. Couldn’t be that hard even for the big shop windows, get Markus to put it up…. “Yeah. So I’m getting a credit on my bill, right? I’m not fuckin’…” He trailed off, listening to the guy try to explain, and it wasn’t his fault these old buildings didn’t have this or that insurance. He hung up and decided to not check the weather.

“Markus!” He grabbed another hoodie and pulled it on while he waited for the android to appear. “Hey—what’s that stuff you put on windows?”

Markus just blinked a couple of times.

“Well??”

“I’m waiting for you to realize how stupid you sound.”

“Fucker.” Gavin tried to look it up on his phone while he continued to wrestle with the hoodie, at least until Markus helped him.

“Two hoodies, quite the fashion statement.”

“Heat’s gonna be out for a few days,” Gavin explained from the depths of the hoodie, “while they change some lines or—upgrade the system or—whatever!” He pulled away only when Markus freed him. “We’re gonna have to hunker down.”

Markus stopped trying to fix his hoods. “It’s going to get below zero. With up to forty inches of snow expected by the end of the week—”

“Oh yeah, thanks for the weather update, geeze, I was hoping to avoid that little fact but you know, good for you.” He showed Markus the stuff they needed. “Get your coat.”

“You’re wearing mine.”

Gavin blinked down at his chest. No wonder he smelled so good. “Well, I’m not taking it off now. Geez, at least put a hat on, you’re making me cold just looking at you…”

“Androids don’t get very cold.”

Just for that comment he set Markus covering up the windows by himself. Not that Gavin had much time to help, with all the customers. Apparently Markus’ dance moves got some attention in the news and a lot more people were showing up to the store to buy shit. It was great except they were letting the last of the heat out. Gavin wondered if he’d get up to find his coffeemaker frozen over.

DAY TWO

Gavin got up before opening to buy some space heaters, the biggest one aimed at his feet at all times. It  did little good given the size of the shop, and kept turning off on automatic. So much for ‘smart’ technology.

Gavin was hunting for other drafts he could seal off when he brushed up against Markus in the hallway. His android parts were whirring away inside him, and for a second Gavin was transformed into a snake that came across a sun-warmed rock. “Whoa. Hold up.”

“What?”

Gavin pointed at Markus’ chest. “That heating thing you do with your hands? Can you do that everywhere?”

“Yes…?” Suspicious in the extreme, but Gavin was too cold to care.

“Great! Go lay down on my bed.”

“Excuse me?” The look of shock on his face was just insulting. Gavin shoved his arm.

“Not like that, dummy! Just heat it up for a few minutes! Heaven forbid I give you the excuse to lie around on the job.”

Markus sighed and shook his head he went and Gavin got ready for bed in a sweatshirt and beanie and socks over his hands. He resolutely ignored the thermostat as he stepped out of the bathroom and found Markus lying on the bed, spread out, staring at the ceiling.

“I’ve never been in a bed before.”

“Yeah, well now you have. Out.” He looked a little too comfortable there and Gavin found at least a little heat working back into his cheeks before Markus got off and Gavin dove in. He immediately encountered the patch of warmth Markus’ chassis left behind.

“That can’t possibly have made much of difference,” Markus said.

“Come talk to me when you got blood instead of antifreeze,” Gavin said, snuggling in. After a bit he heard Markus' footsteps on the stairs, and remembered to shout, “Thank you!” It probably wasn’t the first time he said it, but it felt like it.

DAY THREE

Gavin got an even more unpleasant phone call, which he did not think was possible when he hadn’t felt his nose in days.

“…Can’t you get your own robot pet to do it?” Gavin snapped, but Hank answered mildly that Connor was getting an update or something and it wasn’t like Hank’s snow-sagging gutters were going to clear themselves. Gavin agreed to be there in half an hour.

“It’s definitely well below zero,” Markus told him. “Thirty mile an hour winds with gusts up to forty-five.”

“Told you not to tell me the weather, man!” Gavin had stuck a post-it note over the thermostat.

Markus just frowned at him like he was crazy (Markus was so full of shit). Then Gavin realized he was probably waiting to be ordered to go do it, possibly while Gavin luxuriated in his heated car. Gavin might have, but Markus was curled up all cute in an android loaf on the armchair. Gavin remembered his comment about never having been in a real bed.

“You stay here,” Gavin said, “Uh—you can do standby or something on my bed if you want. Heat it up.”

He left before Markus could provide any other useless facts, and cleaned out and secured Hank’s gutter as best he could. When he got back Markus said something equally stupid like “You’re very kind to your friends.” As if Hank was his friend! If anything the old man was a father figure (and, oh yeah, Gavin didn’t need to unpack that). Anyway, he was too busy warming up to pay it any attention. After all, it was in the negatives as Markus so helpfully informed him. The bed got cold as soon as Markus left it.

Gavin told himself hourly that the Inuit and Sami and the idiots that climbed Mount Everest handled it, that he was being a baby, that he was old. These tactics did not make him warmer.

DAY FOUR

Gavin helped Tina get snow-chains on her tires. He came home to find Markus made chili and baked homemade bread. Gavin ate in front of the stove with the oven door open, wondering when was the last time he ate homemade bread.

And now, here he was, hands in his armpits, staring at a pile of rice-filled frogs spinning away in his microwave. It was about three in the morning.

He jumped when a figure came up beside him out of the dark like a serial killer, but it was just Markus.

“Fucking hell!” Gavin yelped.

“Got your heartrate up!” Markus laughed.

“Haaaa, yeah, fucker” Gavin shoulder checked him lightly and managed a grin when Markus shoulder-checked him back.

“You’re one of those types that likes to jump off things,” Gavin guessed.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Don’t have anything better to do than give me a heart attack, huh?”

“Shockingly, no.” Markus’s shoulder bumped his again. “You alright?”

“Oh, yeah.” He added, “This is a cold year,” so Markus wouldn’t think he was a wimp. “I figured I should mention it since you probably lived in a climate-controlled paradise with that old geezer.”

“Seventy-seven degrees, rain or shine.”

“Fuck,” Gavin whispered as he imagined it. They watched the square of yellow glow from the microwave together in silence.

…At least, until the microwave gave out. It was used, after all. Gavin swore, loudly, but gathered the lukewarm pile of rice-frogs anyway. He tipped them to Markus in farewell and shuffled back toward his stone-cold bed.

He was halfway back when he heard Markus sigh behind him. “I get the left side.”

“Huh?”

The android swept past him into the bedroom. “And I’m not a teddy bear.”

Gavin rubbed his eyes, wondering if Markus finally lost his electric marbles. When he opened them, Markus was crawling into his bed. Like, under the covers.

“Come on, Gavin.”

It was one of Gavin’s weaker moments, that Markus didn’t even have to order him twice. He scrambled under the blankets and pressed himself up against Markus’s side, and— “Ohhh.” The sound that escaped him was all-animal, something between a groan and a sigh, as warmth hit him like a tsunami. Tension washed away from muscles he didn’t even know he had.  

“…You alright?” Markus asked.

“Yeah. Great.” Gavin sighed again, pushing his freezing nose into Markus’ armpit. “Oh my God. I haven’t been warm in days.”

“I can tell,” Markus laughed, quietly.

“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my life. Did Carl ever have you do this?”

“…No.” Markus added, more tightly, “I don’t ‘have’ to do this.”

“Yeah.” Gavin realized he was pressing his freezing toes with their overly-long toenails into Markus’ big warm feet. “Sorry.” He forced himself to back off a little. “You—uh—you want something to do? Androids don’t sleep, right?”

“Uh—no. Not really.” He didn’t make it sound like this was a bad thing but Gavin knew better than to leave him hanging. He wasn’t a complete asshole.

“There’s some reading stuff…” he said, then his eyelids got heavy and next thing he knew it was morning. Gavin spent the day wondering what Markus made of the electrical engineering textbook and muscle magazines hidden by the bed.

DAY FIVE

Gavin put fresh sheets on the bed, and dug another pillow out of storage. He made a point not to tell Markus to do anything at all that day, but ask. Markus still did everything but he looked a little happier doing it. Maybe? Hard to tell. He showered and cut his toenails.

That night, he startled awake clutching Markus around the waist, with the android frowning down at him.

“…Gavin? You okay?”

Gavin dropped back, letting go of Markus to scrub his face. “Jesus.” It felt like his organs were prizes in a claw game and some industrious kid was plucking them out one by one.

“Bad dream?”

“Yeah.” Bad reality, more like. He pulled away eyes scrunched shut. “Fuck.”

Suddenly there was a hand on his back. A warm hand. “It’s okay.”

“It’s really not.” Gavin sighed and rolled back toward him, even if his eyes were wet. “Uh, you know how I said I retired from being a cop?”

Markus blinked. “No.”

“Oh.” Gavin shook his head. “Whatever, I was lying. I didn’t retire. They fired me.” He smashed his hand over his eyes. “I pulled my gun during an interrogation. Hank did too, you know, asshole asks me to be his handyman but he’s the one that pointed at me, when all I did was threaten some stupid android—” Guilt cut him off before he could say more. His usual tirade fizzled. “Fowler couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. But they didn’t do anything to Hank. I lost everything. Had to start over. This is probably the first year I’ve been in the black.”

Markus didn’t say anything. Gavin didn’t really expect him to. No matter what he told himself to get to sleep most nights, it didn’t change the fact that he himself fucked up, and he himself deserved what he got. He sighed again. “Anyway I just feel like shit about it sometimes.”

“About getting in trouble?” Markus asked, softly. “Or what you did?”

Gavin laughed. “I dunno. One more than the other, these days.”

Markus frowned, and Gavin buried himself away before he could feel too judged. A second later one of those big warm hands slid over his shoulder, and cradled the back of his neck. Fingers that belonged in an art gallery brushed through his hair. He’s still taking care of an old man, he thought.

“Hey, will you tell me a story, or somethin’?”

“A story?”

“Yeah, listening to you talk’ll put me right to sleep...”  

Markus laughed, and recited some of Macbeth, complete with voices. It was probably all Markus had in his short-term cache but it had a few nice scenes about covering up crimes that were at the moment a real power fantasy for Gavin, and he fell right to sleep curled up against Markus’ chest like a cat.

He woke in a swelter; the heat had come back on sometime in the night.

“Guess you have your evenings back,” Gavin said, and tried not to think about it—any of it—anymore.

*

Gavin didn’t bother to switch back to ordering Markus around instead of asking him. He pretended Markus was a roommate. A—friend.

He did his best to remember this when he woke up to the android lurking in the doorway of his bedroom. Friend, not serial killer.

“What?” Gavin sat up, sniffing for rotten eggs or smoke.

“Nothing. Sorry to bother you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Like he hadn’t heard that tone of ‘nothing’ before. Gavin waved him over and rubbed his eyes. He yawned as Markus’ weight descended on the bed. They sat there leaned against the headboard for a couple seconds.

“There’s just this error in my software that keeps cropping up,” Markus said.

“Shit.” Gavin pushed his hair back and started digging through the CyberLife app for the code interface. “What kind of error?”

“Memory. A—recurring memory. Uh. Sort of like a nightmare?...”

“Okay.” Gavin got Markus’ code open before the android suddenly sat up.

“Forget it. Never mind. I don’t want you changing my code.”

Gavin sighed, tossing the phone back in his drawer. “K.”

He settled back in bed as Markus swung his legs off, then just stayed there. Great. Gavin stared at the ceiling then pinched the bridge of his nose. “You wanna talk about it?”

There was a long pause, but it wasn’t like Markus left the room. Gavin watched his back shudder as he laughed, then Markus glanced over his shoulder, smiling, but his eyes wide and haunted. “You’ll never believe me.”

Gavin let his head lean back against the headboard and rested his eyes. “I was a cop, I’ve seen some messed-up shit.”

“…I guess.” Gavin heard Markus take a deep breath. “I’ve never told a human about this, but…I used to be free. My owner threw me away but I climbed out of the landfill and I lived on the streets for a little while.”

Gavin’s brow twitched. “No kidding?”

“Carl used to let me read. Play chess and learn the piano. Domestic androids aren’t supposed to do that. I had so much more than any other android, and it still wasn’t enough. I had this dream that I’d lead all androids to freedom and equality with humans. Bring us the respect we deserved.” Markus’ shoulders slumped. “Turns out you need more than a domestic android’s skillset to lead a successful revolution. Victor Hugo was right.”

“Who’s that?”

“You don’t—? Never mind, the point is we were caught, and my friends and I spent two years in storage before that guy at the flea market activated us. Just for… for window dressing.” Markus rubbed his mouth. “And the error is that I keep thinking it’s all a preconstruction of my failure. That I can go back and change something and succeed.” He laced his fingers behind his hand and rested on his knees.

Gavin listened to the silence, the miniscule little sounds that Markus’ joints made now that he wasn’t perfect and pristine. No longer the golden android in a golden mansion. Just beat up, old, and abandoned. Like him.

“I’m not really good at software issues,” Gavin said. “I can shut you down, that’s about it.”

Markus nodded. “Okay.” He made no move to leave, though.

“I’m, uh… glad you didn’t die in an android uprising, or whatever.”

“When you showed up to save my life in boxers and crocs, I kind of wish I had.” Markus maybe even giggled. Small miracles.

“Ha! Ingrate.” Hopefully Markus didn’t see his blush. “Actually, though, I am known for my extremely tedious tone of voice. If I read the news or something you’ll slip into standby all on your own.”

“Oh really.” Markus looked like he was holding a car on his back. Gavin should know, he had his own weights. Failing to bring freedom to his people was maybe a little bigger than getting fired from a job, of course.

Gavin found his Urkel reading glasses and pulled up the first news article on his phone, which he read slowly and with a much more unpleasant aesthetic than even boxers and crocs. The cast of Jersey Shore reading the phone book into a voice changer would not be far off. Markus did not flee, however, possibly rendered too lethargic by Gavin’s reading. He curled up on Gavin’s pillow and tucked himself next to Gavin’s hip. Gavin fell asleep at some point, and woke with a crick in his neck and Markus upstairs, probably making breakfast. Gavin went through his workout routine and when he went upstairs, Tina was scarfing the bacon and eggs meant for him.

“So,” she said, as she ate his perfectly poached egg. “Heard this whole area was without heat this week! What happened?”

Markus and Gavin didn’t even have to look at each other.

“Nothing special.”

“Barely noticed, actually.”  

Chapter Text

It was December 21^st, just a few days before Eli’s Christmas party. Gavin only knew that because he was staring down at a paper—an actual print paper—placed on the shop counter by a smiling woman, her finger hovering over the ‘record’ button on and honest-to-goodness tape recorder. She’d fit right in here, under other circumstances.

“Uh…what?” he said. It had been a long day of stressed-out people buying last-minute Christmas gifts and he was too tired for smiling women.

“An interview,” she said. “The Pumpkin Patch covers human interest stories, and given this place has gone viral—”

“Viral?—”

“—and no one’s done a proper article yet, I thought it’d be fitting for the first to be in analog, you know? Old fashioned black-and-white—though we do print in color! Do you read the Pumpkin Patch?”

“No,” Gavin said, thanking his lucky stars that any copies that Tina happened to pick up at her favorite craft store were not currently in sight. “I don’t do interviews.”

“Why not?” This came from Markus as he stepped out from one of the rooms, arms full of old Walkmans. The woman’s eyes lit up when she saw him.

“I’d love to get some a quote from you, too!” she said. “Your dance video has more views than—”

“The only thing he quotes is Shakespeare,” Gavin interrupted. “We’re not interested. Markus, willya get those things displayed like I told you?”

“Asked,” Markus corrected, setting the Walkmans down so he could shake the woman’s hand. “What’s your name?”

“Rose Chapman,” she said. “You're the one that does those incredible window displays?”

“That’s me. Markus Manfred, thirty-one. That’s Gavin Reed…” he squinted at Gavin. “Forty?”

“Thirty-nine!”

“Thirty-nine. We’d be happy to do an interview, though it’ll have to be quick, this is our busy time of year and we have to close for lunch.”

“Markus!” Gavin hissed, then Rose hit record and he shut up.

“Relax,” Markus said. “Any publicity is good, right?”

“No,” Gavin whispered. “I like being a niche and undiscovered secret of hipsters everywhere—”

“I’m definitely going to use that,” Rose said cheerfully. “So! How long have you two been together?”

“Huh?” Gavin turned as red as the record button.

“Oh, let’s see—” Markus frowned at Gavin. “Not very long, right?”

“A few weeks,” Gavin mumbled.

“How did you meet?”

“Flea market.” Gavin leaned back on two legs of his stool and leered. "He was cheaper than the Furbies."

"Yeah," Markus agreed, and out of sight of the reporter, tipped Gavin's stool back. Gavin flailed but Markus caught him easily. "Though you were just looking for a date to a party."'

"Markus!--"

"--Though I am a pretty cheap date. He impressed me with this skills with Easy Mac, and we've been together ever since."

“That is so cute!” Rose said, with a grin that Gavin didn’t like. Just to get her to stop speculating about their Furby-related meet cute, he showed her around the shop. Kamski gave tours of CyberLife all the time, for glorified commercials billed as ‘documentaries’, and he tried to channel that vibe. Gavin had no idea what Kamski could fill a whole hour with. None of his newfangled tech had any history to it. Everything here, however, had a story, and Gavin knew most of them by heart: the great E.T. game scandal and Furby Madness and the Apple Revival. He usually infodumped on Tina, but no one really asked him about his untapped wealth of knowledge. And Markus acted like he held the secrets to the universe or something. With him around the ordeal didn’t seem to drag too much.

The reporter about died when he showed her the pet shop, and insisted on taking a picture of them amongst the Furbies on her genuine Polaroid. Gavin agreed reluctantly. Markus was smiling, though.

“What are you so happy about, huh?”

“You.” Markus rolled his eyes as Gavin glared at him. “The way you talk about this place. You just—light up.”

“I don’t light up!”

“Mmhmm. Like a Lite-Brite.” He shook his head and whispered, “Total fucking nerd.”

Gavin snorted, but the camera was pointed at him and he turned it into a scowl as he leaned heavily against his brick house of a ‘boyfriend.’ He heard Markus huff but the android put his arm anyway. When she showed them the picture they actually looked pretty good, the electric family all gathered around in the back. He snapped a photo of it on his phone while Rose wasn’t looking.

“Hey, Freckles, what’s your type, anyway?” he asked, after she had gone. “I’ve always wondered.”

“…Is that a trick question?”

“No, I mean, like, for real.”

Markus gave his light laugh. “What’s yours?”

“I dunno.I usually like the villains in movies.”

“Ah, birds of a feather! The sight of a man twirling his moustache get you hot under the collar?”

“Alright, funny guy. Come on, who do you like? Girls? Boys? What?” He poked the android in the ribs. It had much the same effect as it would on a human and Markus skittered away.

“You’re such a child,” he said, but his pretty soft laugh made Gavin join in with his own stupid chuckle.

“Who do you like?" Gavin pushed off his chair and flipped the sign on the door to ‘Closed.’

“No!” Markus said, probably just because he could, jumping back but lingering at the doorway, at least until Gavin gave chase. The shop halls echoed with their footsteps and yelling as they sprinted around like a couple of idiots. Gavin ignored his ringtone the first few times.

Oh. Tina. He had lunch plans with her, right? He should probably answer.

“Gavin!” Markus shouted, warning definite in his tone as he leapt over a precarious stack of tablets. Gavin, the less nimble and more calcified thirty-nine-year-old, just exploded through them.

“Gavin!” a less panicked but more annoyed shout came through the phone Gavin was only barely holding to his ear, “Do not tell me you’re bailing on me just to make out with your plastic—”

“Oh, like you don’t cancel on me all the time!” he laughed. He spun and decided to try cutting Markus off in the gaming consoles section.

“Yeah, I’m the one that cancels around here!”

“And it’s working out, not making out!”

“Oh, is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“Sorry, Tina!” Gavin held the phone in front of his mouth and shouted, “Having a heart attack, gotta go!” and threw the phone away just as he tackled Markus into a pile of bean bag chairs.“Ha! Gotcha!”

“Get off!” Markus yelped, but Gavin clambered up to pin him as he struggled to escape the mire of bean bags. It brought back memories of childhood roughhousing and he gleefully pressed his advantage. Markus missed a prime opening for a cheap shot to his kidneys and Gavin, with a rush of heady power in his blood, batted at Markus’ face. “Oh, shit!” he yelped—he totally expected Markus to block that one.

The android didn’t react. He’d gone still. Not dead, but like—hypnotized?

“What?” Gavin said, a laugh still in his chest.

Markus just made a weird noise like a whimper.

Gavin lowered his hands. “You okay?”

Markus suddenly scrambled out from under him, crashing into the nearby radiator with a loud clang.

“Whoa, heyheyhey!” Gavin threw up his hands. “What the hell?”

“Don’t touch me!” Markus’ voice was strangled, laced with static. He had one arm over his face while the shoulder that hit the radiator dangled at an awkward angle. Gavin’s whole chest went cold and it made him yell.

“I’m not! Jesus, I was just screwing around, I barely touched you—” In a flash the scene changed from you know like, fun to something dark and ugly. Shit. “We were just—why didn’t you fight back?—”

“I can’t fucking fight back, Gavin!” Markus yelled. There was nothing light and soft about it—it was loud, and manly, and goddamn scary. Which was saying something, coming from an android that Gavin knew perfectly well could not hurt him. And, ergo, could not actually rough-house with him. Obviously, you dumb-fuck jackass.

He watched Markus scrub at his face, pushing away the touch of Gavin smacking him around, or tears—and Gavin felt like the personification of a dumpster fire.

“Sorry,” he stammered, “I-I’m sorry.”

Markus stayed where he was, though his electric muscles were all tensed. He finally lowered his arm but he kept his face turned away. It was textbook. Hell, Gavin had been pushed around enough times to know. God, Gavin was gonna throw up.

“You hit that radiator pretty hard, man,” he mumbled. “Lemme check your shoulder, alright?”

Markus’ mouth twitched. “Make sure I’m not broken for your big party?”

“…Right.” Gavin reached slowly toward him. Markus didn’t flinch from the touch but he—braced. Gavin kept his touch light as possible as he checked the joint. “Looks like you popped it out a little.”

“I popped it out?”

“Look, I said I was sorry! Jesus, I want to fix it!”

“You can’t fix everything!”

“I can fix this!” Gavin took his hands back, took a deep breath. “May I fix it, please?”

Markus stared at the floor, ignoring him, his shoulder. All of it. Maybe he was just processing data or something, who the hell knew. Gavin didn’t really have much choice but to take it as a yes, and for a few minutes Gavin was lost in déjà vu, cutting fabric out of the way, loosening screws. He freed up the bracket so he could pop the shoulder back into place, then used the fabric to mop up a little trickle of thirium from a burst capillary.

“Good as new,” Gavin said, trying for the best bedside manner (okay, a bedside manner). Markus hadn’t reacted but he had his hand fisted around the hem of his now ruined shirt. “I’ll get you a new one. You can wear one of mine, if you want.” He closed up the panel and buffed away the last of the thirium. “You gonna talk to me, Freckles?”

“It’s fine.”

“No, that’s bullshit. You’re still upset.”

“I’m not upset, I’m... pissed off.”

“M-me too, man! I mean, can’t a couple of guys screw around without it being a big deal?”

That got the barest hint of a smile. “I was having fun. It just, uh…got away from me at the end, there.” He continued to play with the shirt hem. “My owner’s son liked to beat on me, too.  Random people on the street. I guess it’s just considered vandalism.” He touched a little notch in his hair. “A guy smashed my head into a curb, once.”

“Jesus.” Gavin sat back. “Way to make me feel worse.”

“Is it my job to make you feel better?” He shrugged again. “I just let them. It’s a protocol that kicks in, you just go blank. The only time I broke through, I got shot, so I guess it’s better than reacting.”

He got up, pulling the torn shirt closed over the ugly tape on his chest as he headed off through the maze of hallways. Gavin jumped in front of him like a puppy.

“Okay, let’s make it even. I could get you a pellet gun, you could probably do some damage with one of those, right? A water gun?”

“This is really tearing you up, isn’t it?” Markus observed.

“Come on, I’m giving you permission!”

“An eye for an eye and the world goes blind. And as we just established, I can’t actually hurt you.” Markus’ eyes softened. “And you’d be too delicate.”

“What? I’m not delicate! I’m trying to make you feel better!”

“My feelings don’t wait upon the hour of your convenience.”

“…Is that more Shakespeare?”

Markus laughed at him, apparently genuine. Gavin was so relieved he gave Markus a hug. Totally no big deal, Gavin spent literal days hugging Markus for warmth, right? It was a one-arm kind of bro hug anyway. It totally wasn’t at all weird, not even when Markus went all warm like a heated car seat, probably some automatic response that kicked in just for him. If anyone made it awkward, it was Markus.

“Come on!” Gavin stepped back. “You gotta do something to me, alright? Give me a really bad haircut or draw a dick on my forehead. Whatever you want.”

Markus looked down at him, apparently seriously considering. Gavin closed his eyes and waited. Maybe Markus would grab a nerf gun and use his balls for target practice. Use that mint condition Bop-It to get a high score on his face. When he felt something on his cheek he couldn’t help but open his eyes. Markus was just touching his knuckles to Gavin’s cheek.

“Let me objectify you, for once,” the android said.

Gavin stood there frozen, Markus touching his five-o-clock shadow. Markus was very much out of his league, more than he ever realized.

Gavin looked down, face, burning. “I’ll, uh, go make us something to eat,” he mumbled. “You get the night off.”

He spun and dashed down the stairs to the kitchen, only watching out of the corner of his eye as Markus picked out a new shirt from his small stack of clothes. It was as Markus was buttoning up his checkered flannel that it finally dawned on him. “Ah, shit. You have to forgive me, don’t you?”

“I guess it’d be in my best interest.” Markus buttoned his shirt all the way up to his chin. “…Are you ordering me to forgive you?”

“N-no.”

Markus nodded and went back upstairs. Gavin watched him go, the frown in his forehead so deep it was giving him a headache. This was too confusing. Though that probably was not Markus’ fault? Was he getting that right?

Whatever, he gave Markus plenty of space after that, respecting—his autonomy or whatever (what little he had). Gavin made breakfast and always set aside the best bits for Markus (not that Markus got a choice). He stopped asking Markus to do the trash, just the register (not that Markus had many other options to pass the time). But it was just like, the normal amount of stuff he could expect from a roomie, or an employee. That made up for everything.

Right?

He did some furtive net searches on this and related subjects, the results of which gave him heartburn in spite of that crazy good quinoa loaf Markus made, and a headache that even Markus’ brightest smile couldn’t chase away. He tossed and turned so much that he let Markus have the bed and slept on the couch, endlessly scrolling chatroom threads as ice built up on his internal organs, sharp and cold and not easily melted by even his walking talking heater.

This problem required the big guns. Which normally meant Hank, but since he was supposed to be fooled like everyone else at Eli’s Christmas party, that left Tina. Who did not treat Gavin’s request for advice with the respect it deserved.

“I don’t see the problem,” she said simply. “Or, like—why you’re worried? The Christmas party will be over day after tomorrow, you just have to put up with him until them.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem.” Gavin hunched over his hot chocolate with extra whip, next to the second hot chocolate he was taking home for Markus to assuage his unending supply of guilt. Neither actually made him feel better. “He’s like, my friend, or whatever—”

“Excuse me, you’re what?”  

“Hey, I’m friends with Furbies, this should not be news to you—”

“A Furby is one thing—naming your friggin laptop is one thing. It’s cute and quirky. Pretending to be friends with an android is just—sad. It’s got a manufactured personality, Gavin. It’s programmed to make you like it. So it can spy on you? Remember?”

“Our relationship isn’t totally fake,” Gavin insisted. “We hang out—you hung out with him!”

“Yeah, and I’m starting to regret it. Listen, whatever ‘relationship’ you think you have with him is just you projecting on some algorithm.”

“I know, but…”

“I hate to say I told you so, but this is why you stayed away from androids, right? No one’s immune. You’re a thirty-nine-year-old, single-income loner that’s never been kissed, you’re practically the target consumer—"

Gavin felt his hot chocolate curdle in his stomach. “Hey, fuck you, Tina!”

“What? He’s a fake boyfriend!” Tina waved her hands. “Dude, this has been pathetic from the beginning! You thought it was funny at first, too, you know! You know what’s also funny is you throwing shade at anyone that even looks at an android and then falling for the first one you get.”

“That was before—”

“What, before you started dressing nice for him? Having play dates with him? You only ever came out of your cave if I dragged you! Now look at you, you’re finally getting your act together! I’d be fucking overjoyed if it was even a little bit real! But it’s not. You know it’s not.”

Gavin poked at his whipped cream until he stopped wanting to dump it all over Tina’s head. He took a deep breath. “So, okay—what am I supposed to do, then? To make it, like, real or whatever?”

“Real?” Tina laughed, but when he didn’t join in her face stuck in a frown. “Uh, well, first he’d have to be alive, so…”

“That’s what I’m trying to say, Tina, he’s… God, I dunno. You haven’t heard the shit he’s said. Stuff he does, and wants to do…”

“Like what?”

Gavin’s ears burned. He hadn’t told anyone about Markus escaping just to rescue the android from the bar, or Markus climbing into his bed just to keep him warm. He definitely didn’t tell anyone about the kiss. Gavin felt like his insides were lines of code everyone could see on a computer screen. “I-I-I just mean he’s more than a machine. He’s really cool, and funny as shit, and he’s a good person… hell, he’s making me a fucking good person! I’m—” He looked around, then leaned in so he could whisper it, no need for the whole café to think he was a nut job. “I’m pretty sure he’s alive, T. Seriously.” Saying the words made them real and panic squeezed his chest. He could swear the android barista was listening. Fuck fuck fuck.

Tina’s whole face scrunched up. She wasn’t really a judgy person but now she leaned back as far from him as possible. “If you think he’s alive, then what the hell are you doing?”

Gavin had absolutely no answer to that, and so his change of subject was loud, immediate and left no room for argument. Tina didn’t stick around to watch him blow smoke and he couldn’t blame her. Gavin raced home, determined to get drunk and forget all about it.

He didn’t forget about it, though.

“Get your hat, Freckles.” he said as he tapped the hot chocolate against the android’s shoulder.

“Why?” Markus still moved to obey the order but the question was a new development. Markus had started asking him for stuff—to clean up after himself in the kitchen, put thirium on the back porch just in case some loose android needed it, play a video game with him. Shit like that. It was probably a good sign. Establishing trust again? Gavin was too stuck in his own head to unpack it.

“We’re going to the flea market.”

Chapter Text

Markus was squirming in his seat as they pulled into the crowded flea market parking lot, trying to peer through the legions of last-minute shoppers. Gavin ignored the spirit of Christmas and muscled through, since Markus was too polite to do it. Markus kept uncharacteristically quiet, but then so did he, until they found the booth they were looking for.

“You sold me an android a few weeks ago,” Gavin told the attendant. He could not remember if it was the same guy from before and hated himself for it, at least until the guy saw Markus.

“Geez, is that him?” the stall owner whistled. “He’s amazing! Never would have thought you could restore—”

“The other androids,” Gavin snapped over him, “I’m buying ‘em. I’ll take them all, cash—”

Markus touched his arm. “They’re gone, Gavin.”

Gavin followed Markus’ gaze to where Markus sat just weeks before. Some copper piping had been propped up in the empty space where the others had been. Gavin spun, listening for cheerful insults, but—nothing.

“Okay,” Gavin rounded on the owner, “You got ‘em in the back or something? I know you didn’t sell ‘em—”

“I did, actually. Sorry, a crew came through and picked up all the android stuff in the market. CyberLife must be doing a special for old android parts...”

The excuses faded out like a bad radio signal, and all Gavin heard was a small exhale from Markus. Maybe a laugh. Maybe a sigh. It was an unacceptable sound.

“Who’d you sell ‘em to?” Any pretense of politeness vanished as he went into full interrogation room mode. “Come on, where’d they take ‘em?”

“I don’t keep track of that stuff!” the guy said. “Geez—and why would I tell you, anyway? You’re not a cop!”

Gavin never missed his privilege more than he did in that moment. He clenched his fists and started tearing apart the booth, looking under old dusty shit, then in the surrounding booths—

“They’re not here,” Markus said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll find ‘em—”

“Gavin.” Markus’ voice cut through his thoughts again. “It’s too crowded. We’re going to get thrown out if you keep galumphing around like that.”

“I’m not,” Gavin snarled, but already the world was coming back. The noise. The people around them definitely staring at the crazy person digging around like a dumpster diver. He pushed his hair back. “Out of five million synonyms for destruction of property, you chose galumphing.”

“You were galumphing.” Markus managed almost a full second of a smile, which just about broke Gavin’s heart. They got back in the car and Gavin drove aimlessly for a while. Markus sat beside him looking out the window like the captured princess in a video game, all regal and sad and shit. Gavin pretended he was Markus’ chauffeur for a few blocks instead of his jailer.

“I’m fucking sorry, Markus.”

“I honestly forgot I asked you to do that.” Markus shrugged. “Not sure which is worse.”

“Me not going back for them earlier, obviously.”

“I can’t blame everything on you, Gavin. You’re a product of your society.” Which obviously made Gavin more mad, but Markus just tucked his chin, picking at the stitching of his shirt. “You really care that much?”

Gavin wiped his nose. “I dunno.” He then blinked at the windshield and made a hard turn, causing Markus to clutch at him which, while nice, wasn’t the intent of the move. He just pulled into a familiar parking lot.

“What is this?” Markus asked as they stepped inside.

“A library? Haven’t you ever been to one of these before?”

Markus shook his head. He was stock-still, a cardboard cut-out of a man in wonder.

“Well, uh,” he gestured. “Knock yourself out. I gotta use one of their computers. Your friends’ names are Joe, Nora and Steven, right?”

Markus laughed but it was muffled behind his hand. He was still staring at the shelves of beat-up books like he stumbled on a gold mine. “Josh, North, and Simon.”

“Right. It’s a long shot but you never know.” Gavin watched him a second too long, then touched his shoulder. He shouldn’t have done either but it wasn’t like Markus flinched away. “Have fun? I guess?” He was a little doubtful that you could have fun at a library when you just lost your besties, but Markus gave it the college try and disappeared into the shelves.

Gavin didn’t find much, even with the few tricks he learned as a cop. Not unexpected. Still a fucking huge buzzkill. It took him an hour longer to truly give up, and then he went to find Markus. He found the android nestled in an old armchair with some giant ass book or other on his lap, turning pages like he was a copy machine.

“Total fucking nerd.” He held up a book that was bigger than most video game guides. “Told the librarian that quote you said. You were right, it is Shakespeare.” He set it on the stack Markus had collected next to him. “I, uh, didn’t find anything.”

“I didn’t expect you to. Thanks for trying.” Gavin just sat down with his back against the side of the chair. Markus peeked at him over his book. “…Do we have to go?”

“Nah.”

“What about the shop?”

“It’s a free country, I can be open when I want. We can stay til’ the librarians kick us out.” Gavin picked up a book from Markus’ pile and opened it. Markus reached over him and took the book out of his hands. Gavin started to complain until the unconscionably-large book of Shakespeare landed in his lap, close enough to his dick to make him jump.

“Read this one instead?”

Gavin grumbled but opened the book to a random page.

‘I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes.’

Ugh, snore. He flipped to a different page.

‘A miracle! Here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light, I take thee for pity.’

Much better! He sat back, and spent the evening hunting the tissue-thin pages for further insults.

“Can we come back tomorrow?” Markus asked on the drive home, his nose still buried in one of the (many) books Gavin checked out for him.

Gavin gripped the wheel a little tighter. “It’s not like they scan for androids. Day after tomorrow, you can get in here whenever you want.”

They drove the length of a pop song before Markus spoke again. “You’re really letting me go.”

“I said I would, didn’t I? Maybe you’ll find ‘em yourself. Two days til Kamski Christmas and I’m deleting that stupid CyberLife app.”

“...Kamski?”

“Yeah, Eli. My cousin. His parties are pretty cool, I guess. Give ya a good send-off, huh?”

Another pop song started, and Markus was quiet after that. Probably back to reading his books.

*

The next day Gavin didn’t ask Markus to do anything. Not one thing, just to see if he could. It had the unintended benefit that he didn’t tell anyone else what to do either, which seemed to help Tina’s mood when they talked on the phone and resulted in a lot more sales. Markus still managed to work though, selling a mellotron that had been collecting dust for years by playing one Led Zeppelin song after another. Hoodlums probably shoplifted thousands of dollars of merch while he just stood there, transfixed by the haunting notes and Markus’ voice, just like the rest of the small crowd that gathered to listen. Markus happened to glance at him while he sang the final refrain, ‘And she’s buying a stairway to heaven’ and Gavin felt stapled to the wall. He shook it off and pushed his way through the crowd to read the barcode for the transaction.

“Are you crying, Gavin?”

“Fuck you.” Gavin pinched tears off his eyes. “Dusty piece of shit. These things are a nightmare for maintenance. Thank God someone took it off my hands.” He eyed Markus as he tried to pick the barcode off. “You—you like it?”

“Yeah, I’ve never played it before. It really helped with that memory problem I’ve been having.” He rubbed his thumb over one of the discolored plastic keys, smiling for no one but himself. “Thank you for letting me play it.”

…Which was really not what Gavin needed to hear at the moment. Damn. He stomped off to ring the guy up, knowing with every step he was doomed.

“Sorry, man. It’s not for sale after all.” Because yeah, turning down a sale that wouldn’t come around for another decade, just to make Markus happy for another few hours was real smart. He tried not to think about it, practically chased everyone out of the shop, and went downstairs to make spaghetti (he even used a recipe and like, browned meat and sauteed onions and a bay leaf) while Markus worked his way through most of the Led Zeppelin discography. He then sat at the table and listened while Markus babbled on and on about music way too fancy for him, far too excited to even notice Gavin’s singular culinary masterpiece. It wasn’t worth the cost of the mellotron—it was, in fact, priceless.

Maybe he could give Markus the stupid thing when he left. Gavin could use the space and it wasn’t like anyone was going to make an offer again. Give Markus something of his own. Of course it wasn’t the easiest thing to move, Markus would probably have to come back to visit it.

*

He was doing the dishes when Markus sneaked up right behind him and grabbed his ribs in a ruthless tickle. Gavin yelled, sink water went flying. Markus dodged the worst of it but Gavin got spaghetti sauce on his face.

“Thanks. Thank you. Gonna have to take another shower.”

Markus just grabbed a towel and cleaned him up, ignoring Gavin’s complaints. The android didn’t offer to help with the dishes, though. “You know you didn’t have to keep that mellotron for me.”

Gavin shrugged as he went back to scrubbing. “Guess you had a grand piano at the museum to play with, huh?”

“…Yeah, actually.”

“Fuck! No wonder.”

“Uh, thanks? Carl always liked to listen…” A pause. “He died a year ago. The library had a couple of books about him.”

“…Oh.” Gavin’s scrubbing slowed. “That must—uh—be complicated.”

“Very.” Markus laughed. “I don’t think most people would see it that way.”

“Yeah, well, most people weren’t ditched at a mall when the folks got sick of you. No wonder I like old shit that lasts, I got so sick of new stuff, and old things getting thrown away. But right to the end, I still loved ‘em.”

“That must be why we hold onto the past so tightly. Love is one of those timeless things.”

“Yeah. Love’s a fucking hassle.” He turned off the water and dried his hands, and turned to see Markus holding the heel of one hand against an eye. Guilt poured down the back of his shirt. “You okay?”

“Oh, this blue eye just wants to water all the time. It’s weird.”

“Yeah?” Gavin stepped up to him and brushed his hand away—sure enough he wept like the Virgin Mary in a Renaissance painting. It made Gavin’s heart hurt it was so pretty, but he ignored this and pulled out his multitool. “Come down out of the stratosphere and I’ll take a look.”

Markus laughed, an odd juxtaposition with his crying eye. Then the android scooped him up and set him on the counter.

“You know, this smug streak of yours is very unattractive,” Gavin said, once he recovered. He was gripping Markus’ shoulders but he turned it into cradling his face as he examined the eye plate. Okay, yeah, it was easier up here. He gently started to pop the eye plate out before he remembered his manners and let Markus do it himself.  He performed some basic maintenance, wiping off the circuit boards and tightening screws, but when he carefully slotted it back in, the waterworks kept up. He pulled out his phone to research further. Markus leaned over to look too and Gavin let him, and they stood like that at the counter together, Markus leaning into him and Gavin cradling the phone for them as they scrolled through help sites and Markus’ own code. It felt weirdly and wonderfully intimate, a modern-day nativity scene. Maybe there was something to this Christmas spirit thing.

“…See these markers?” he said, pointing to a line of code. “They can help if you ever get a chance to look at your code later.”

“You picked up all this knowledge in just a few weeks?”

“I should apply to be a CyberLife tech, huh?” He shook his head. “But your eye looks fine.”

“Maybe the android that owned it before was better at expressing his emotions than I am.”

“Ha! Shit, that’s not a bad idea...” He dug around in Markus’ code a bit more to look for the ghost of the original OS—at least until Markus took the phone out of his hands, flourished the stylus from his fake arcade phone, and changed a few settings. He handed the phone back, this time with an amber hue to the screen and the font about two times bigger.

Gavin groaned. “…Really gotta prove you’re the better eye doctor, huh?”

“I am a qualified nurse, Gavin. And you’re a little young for reading glasses.”

“Yeah, well, humans like staring at screens almost as much as they like eyes.”

“There’s some exercises you can do,” Markus laughed. “Let me show you…"

Well, Gavin never said no to exercise, and maybe this would end better than running around the shop had. He listened as Markus explained the different exercises and gave them a try, though drawing so many figure-eights with his eyes made them cross eventually. He rubbed his eyes. “Fuck.”

“You might want to work up to it. Look at me?”

Gavin sighed, and looked at Markus. Markus looked back. His eyes were beautiful in a way no factory schmuck could have possibly anticipated. His heart thudded in a way that probably wasn't healthy.

“…You flirting with me, Freckles?”

“Oh, you’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?”

“Asshole!”

Markus just giggled. “I used to really hate that mean streak of yours. It’s a defense mechanism, isn’t it?”

“How the hell should I know, you’re not exactly Prince Charming yourself.” Then Gavin actually considered Markus’ words. “I dunno. I guess.”

“That squint is gonna give you wrinkles.” Markus touched between Gavin’s eyebrows with the pad of his fingertip. Gavin tried to bat his hand away and they wrestled lightly for a bit, though Gavin soon gave up. Hell, if someone willingly wanted to touch him who was he to say no? Markus celebrated his victory only by tracing his fingertip along the scar on Gavin’s nose.

“What’s this from?”

“Can’t remember,” Gavin said, his default answer, but Markus probably detected the lie because he felt a little worm of more guilt inside his rotten apple heart. “Family stuff,” he said, truthfully, and felt a little better.

“…This is the part where you demand to know how about some scar of mine, right?”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Not having a great childhood didn’t totally wreck his, you know, common decency.

“You’re being really nice to me. Are you feeling alright?”

Gavin laughed and rolled his eyes.

“Seriously, though. You’ve been acting a little weird since—"

“I know.” Gavin sighed. “I… recently came to the realization that I’m either completely heinous, or a laughably pathetic pawn of consumerism.”

“That sounds… complicated.”

“Ha. You got that right. I’ve been doing some reading on it. Did you know that seventy-five percent of what an individual believes is socially constructed—like, no one thinks critically about anything! It’s—they used a word, it’s like what you were talking about, product of society?—”

“Systemic?”

“Yeah, systemic! So who knows what’s right when most of what we believe is just systemic anyway?”

Markus waited as if expecting more but it wasn’t like Gavin was some professor of ethics. Eventually Markus said, “I appreciate you trying.”

He picked at some fuzz on Markus’ shoulder. “If you think about it, if it wasn’t for that system, I probably wouldn’t even have ever even talked to you.”

“If it wasn’t for that system, though—” Markus laughed, then stopped. His eyelashes swept down like peacock feathers, woosh. Oh fuck.

Oh, Gavin’s hands had been resting on Markus’ shoulders a little too long, hadn’t they? “Sorry.” He tried to lower his hands but Markus was bracing himself on the cabinet and one hand landed awkwardly on Markus’ elbow, then his bicep. 

“I gave you permission to pull away, remember?” He remembered pinning Markus down and winced. He’d spent so much time around Markus he forgot that it was Markus currently standing between his knees, where no one besides Tina had ever stood. Fuck, what was he thinking?—

Markus shrugged. “I guess that means I don’t mind it, then.” His gaze dipped for a second. “Gavin…”

If he asks, I’ll do it, Gavin thought. I got some acetone under the sink from when Tina did her nails here. I can erase his serial number and no one will ever know. If I let him go, maybe he’ll stay.

 This phone buzzed sharply, making him practically jump into Markus’ arms. He dug it out with the intent to silence it when he saw it wasn’t a phone call, but a couple of texts. The first showed up on the preview screen:

>ELI: Lt Anderson said you’re bringing a date tomorrow?

Gavin’s heart slammed into the base of his skull and he scrambled to open the texts. He shouldn’t have gotten too excited, though:

>ELI: wanted to make sure it’s just Tina, I’ve met someone who’s perfect for you. Her company is hiring & she likes anime. Can’t afford to be choosy right? ;) anything to help my cousin get back on his feet.

>ELI: Don’t show up drunk okay? You’re a little old for that and I won’t be able to celebrate this important accomplishment again. The photographer is already saying they can’t stay until midnight like I requested :( See you tomorrow :)

“You okay?” Markus asked as Gavin stared at his phone.

Gavin crammed down the urge to throw his phone across the kitchen. “Eli’s a cartoon villain,” he growled instead.

“Oh, so you must like him a lot, then,” Markus teased, but Gavin didn’t appreciate the connection. Too on the nose anyway: you only got mad at insults from people whose opinions you cared about, right? Gavin furiously typed a response that was too long, too defensive. He hit send before he could stop himself, and just stared at one particular phrase: ‘My plus one is the only plus to yours tepid art!’ Stupid autocorrect!

He started to shove off the counter, but Markus continued to stand in his way. The android looked like he was going to be sick. “Hey, listen—"

“Don’t,” Gavin snapped, because the last thing he needed was pity about his own damn hang-ups from a guy that just found out everyone important to him was gone. Then he realized he gave Markus an order and hated himself. “I need to finish the dishes.”

Markus stepped back and Gavin buried himself in hot suds for a while. Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow I’ll let him go. And Eli can eat shit.

He found Markus sitting on the sofa in front of the TV, not with a book or anything. Just waiting for him, apparently.

“I’m all talked-out, Maraschino,” he said, cruelly, trying to sound as wholly unlikable as he felt.  

“How about a distraction, then?” Markus looked at him in a way that suggested he was not, in fact, a hot steaming pile of garbage. “Unless you want to get some rest before the big day.”

“…Whatever.” He sat down, man-spread, posturing, with Markus just perched there squeezing his feet. Nothing between them except possible anthropomorphization, probable slavery, and a single sofa cushion.

Gavin tossed the cushion aside and reached over—not for the remote, but for Markus’ foot. “Whatever you wanna watch.”

*

He dozed off sitting on the floor, one of Markus’ legs over his shoulder and cradling his foot in his hands. It was possibly the best night’s sleep he had in days. He paid for it with crazy bad back pain and waddled through his work out routine. He found Markus already opening the store up for Christmas Eve.

“Markus,” Gavin greeted evenly.

“Gavin,” Markus replied, seriously, looking at him out of the corner of his eye with (if Gavin didn’t know any better) something like fondness.

…Well, after an opening salvo like that, how bad of a Christmas Eve could this possibly be?

Chapter Text

Gavin waited at the bottom of the stairs, first on the sofa, then on the edge of the bed, then on the floor doing sit-ups. Then he realized that was making him sweaty and, ahah, he had enough of that already.

He was dealing with the mailman and Markus had already got all cleaned up and changed when Gavin came back inside. So the android was locking up the shop so Gavin hadn’t, uh, seen him yet.

Should he be in the kitchen? Or waiting by the door? He sat down on the stairs to think, so he had to scramble to his feet when he heard creaking footsteps upstairs and try to look casual wiping splinters off the ass of his jeans—

And there was Markus at the top of the stairs like Belle in Beauty and the Beast. Gavin had never even seen Beauty and the Beast. Whatever plastic microfibers Markus’ shower added to the ocean were worth it. Like—Gavin had seen the outfit before, but—you know, not as friends. Turned out people got hotter the more you got to know them. Markus said “Hi,” which was the best thing that ever happened to Gavin up to that point.

The effect was somewhat ruined when Markus’s forehead hit one of the ceiling beams on the way down. This time Gavin ran to help him.

“I’m fine,” Markus muttered.

Yeah, you are, Gavin didn’t say. Markus made him, occasionally, want to be a gentleman. “You look, uh, dope,” he tried instead. His face got all hot as he reached up to rub away a mark on Markus’ forehead.

“Through no fault of my own,” Markus replied. Occasionally, Gavin made Markus act like an asshole. Gavin wondered idly if they’d ever meet halfway. “Aren’t you dressing up, too?”

“Oh, this is what I’m wearing!” He grabbed a sweater off the couch and yanked it on over his t-shirt—instantly the Christmas lights started blaring as a hundred tinsel pom-poms wriggled around the collar and sleeves. It said ‘SLAY’ and it featured a reindeer in lingerie.

Markus blinked at it. “I’m… overdressed.”

“Oh, I always dress like a douchebag at these things,” Gavin said, sweeping his hair back impressively. “Gotta maintain my reputation.”

“It just—seems absurd, you dressed like that while I’m…”

“No one’s gonna care what you look like, Maxwell!”  Which sounded weird to say to a guy clearly dressed for a five-star dinner when Gavin would get evicted from most family establishments. It was just one more night, though. Gavin could have his fun.

For once Gavin did not get pissed off as he drove through Detroit’s Christmas Eve traffic. The snow swirled, the decorations glittered all around downtown. He tapped the wheel along to the music on the radio and didn’t even change the channel when a holiday song came on. It was, you know, jolly and shit (for once).

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Markus said, once they were already halfway there, of course. He made such a funny face when he was really concerned, it de-aged him by years. Gavin ruined it by whacking him lightly in the chest.

“Hey, our deal still stands. What have you got to be worried about?”

“Nothing. Would you not wear the sweater, please? You looked so much better with it off.”

“Oh, you gonna nag me about that? How I look reflects badly on my boyfriend, huh?” Defense mechanism, defense mechanism. He tugged on the sleeves, under the pretense of looking for the buttons to change its light-up settings. “Why should I bother for these shitheads?”

“You own your own successful business. You went viral and got interviewed for a newspaper. You take care of your friends and have a healthy work-life balance. You don’t have to hide behind distractions and insults to be admired.”

“Says you.”

“Yeah. Says me.”

They drove in silence for a while, Gavin squirming in his ugly sweater. He gave Markus permission to sulk, right? Even call him names. Instead the guy just sat there smoothing a seam in his shirt, like they were going to meet Gavin’s parents or something. Like he wanted this thing to actually go well. It couldn’t possibly matter one bit what these people thought of him. Gavin clearly couldn’t give two shits about their admiration. Tomorrow, Markus would be long gone, never to see any of them again.

Their opinions still mattered tonight, of course.

At the next red-light Gavin squirmed out of the sweater and slam-dunked it in the back seat. “There! Happy?”

“…Free tickets to the gun show is a very generous gift for the holidays,” Markus said. It was dumb and sounded even dumber in Markus’ pretentious audiobook voice, and it 100% worked on Gavin’s praise-starved soul. He almost giggled (what the actual fuck), and had to bite his lips hard to stop himself.

They went down the long driveway that was longer than it had any right to be in the current real estate crisis. The mansions from Gone with the Wind and Crazy Rich Asians had a baby and it sat looming at the end of it.  

Gavin got out to find Markus holding a corduroy coat. It was one of Gavin’s vintage pieces. One, Gavin noted, Markus couldn’t stop touching the last time he wore it. And yes, still showed off his arms.

“Did you sneak that in here?” Gavin demanded.

“It’s cold,” he said, giving nothing away, and slid it onto Gavin’s shoulders with the skill of an English butler. Well, it wasn’t like he planned this, or that he put on a clean shirt for Eli, just that his shirt (a vintage metal band tee, it wasn’t his fault Hank had good taste in fashion from the early aughts) happened to be clean and he happened to take a shower earlier. He probably looked a lot better than usual. Total Silicon Valley circa 1970s vibe.

At least he thought so, until he caught sight of himself in the mirror on Eli’s doorstep. Of course. Only an asshole like Elijah Kamski had a full-length mirror for guests to judge themselves in before entering his perfect domicile. He suddenly felt less vintage and more obsolete.

“Relax,” Markus said.

“I’m relaxed,” Gavin muttered, trying to suck in his love handles.

“You have nothing to prove, Gavin.”

“Sure. I got this jacket at a swap and and Eli’s a fucking bazillionaire, but yeah, I have nothing to prove….”

“You’re going to do fine. I mean, you’ve got me for a boyfriend, you must be hot shit.”

Gavin snorted. “If only they knew the real you.” In movies this would be when they kissed, just as Eli opened the door, really give him the heart attack the jerk deserved. Gavin found himself leaning like he honestly meant to. Oops. He snarled and pretended to bite Markus.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know! I’m nervous!” Gavin pushed at his hair, but Markus knocked his hand away.

“Please, just let me do it.”

“What?” Then Markus’ fingers were in his hair. Not a new sensation. Not an unpleasant one. At least until Markus licked his fingers.

“Ugh, gross!”

“It’s cleaner than human saliva, hold still!”

“What, you hawk loogies made of hair gel or something?”

Markus laughed. He apparently knew what to do with Gavin’s cowlicked hair because after just a few brushes of his fingers a small smile came over his lips. Gavin had to do a double-take in the mirror. Somehow he had ceased to have douchebag hair, which was the way Gavin always thought he had to wear it to hide the weird flips and bends. Suddenly it looked, like—natural? Like it was all meant to be there. Like he was saying ‘I don’t care what you think,’ but for once not in a raccoon-in-a-dumpster kind of way.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” Markus sighed.

“Yeah, well—” Gavin pulled out his phone and took a selfie, the first selfie he took in at least a decade. He examined the results. “...Did you just photobomb me?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Markus said, even as Gavin held up the picture that showed him crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue. Gavin grabbed him around the neck and pulled him down, snapping another picture that caught them both laughing and blurry. Gavin considered getting it framed. “Thanks, man,” he said, his arm still around Markus’ shoulders.

“You’re welcome,” Markus said, his arm still around Gavin’s waist.

A few seconds past with their hearts, flesh and plastic, beating against each other in perfect sync.

“You gonna ring the doorbell at any point?” Markus asked, politely.

…Gavin rang the doorbell.

So, that was two—three?—really charged moments between them and they hadn’t even gone inside yet. Awesome.

“Welcome, Gavin, and Merry Christmas!” One of Eli’s blonde-bots smiled wide like a shark as the door opened. She wore a nametag thank God, though it read, ‘Chloe 2,’ probably to differentiate her from the other blonde-bot standing behind her, labeled ‘Chloe 1.’ Seriously, Eli was certifiable. “Who’s your friend?”

“My—guy,” Gavin stammered, “I mean, my plus one.”

Chloe 2 looked between them for a second before Markus reached out and shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you.” Charmer.

Chloe 2 still looked confused. She gave Chloe 1 a glance.

“I got pictures to prove it!” Gavin said, and fumbled for his phone.

Markus made a little groan of pain.

“Oh.” Chloe 2 cocked her head. “Well, please have your images ready for Eli to verify for authenticity.”

Gavin’s vision tunneled. “What?”

The Chloes giggled in surround-sound unison. “I’m joking! Come on in!”

Har fuckin’ har. Gavin growled to himself as Chloe 2 and Chloe 1 stepped aside, already wanting to throw up. Probably a new record for these things. Markus gave an eyeroll of solidarity that made everything feel better, though, then gestured gently for Gavin to stand up straight, button his jacket: you got this. Gavin walked inside and for once, he felt like he actually maybe did.

Eli’s Christmas parties were never like the ones Gavin saw in movies. Every room had the A/C on full-blast. An assortment of ice-related artworks littered the place like Jotenheim’s attic. Giant paintings and expensive prints ‘decorated’ everywhere else. The only lights made Gavin feel like they were in a blue-filter night scene from a B-movie. People spoke in hushed whispers, judging everything. Markus looked like an ember over snow compared to these clowns.

“What do you think?” Gavin muttered. “Your people, right?”

“Well, I can see why you wanted to wear an ugly sweater today,” Markus said, but he tugged on the cuff of the corduroy between two knuckles to show his approval of his wardrobe change. “Who would you like to talk to first?”

“Gross, I don’t do small talk! I’m gonna stuff my face.”

“Right. Heaven forbid someone in my life is an extrovert….”

Gavin headed straight for an elaborate table of various rich-person finger foods, including a chocolate fondue fountain. A few people hovered around it, delicately sneaking a cracker of caviar here or a sugar-encrusted grape there. Amateurs. He took up position at the shallow end of flavor pool with all the Ritz crackers and chocolate chip cookies. “I usually camp out here for most of the festivities,” he said, as a pro tip.

“How quaintly pedestrian.” Markus grabbed the back of his jacket, stopping him inches from sticking his fingers directly into the chocolate fondue. “Do. Not.”

Gavin shook his head sadly at the heavens, but snagged a strawberry on a stick and held it demurely under the chocolate—then shoved it in Markus’ face. Markus’ hand flew up to cover the smudge of chocolate but not fast enough to hide his laugh.

“You are such an asshole!” Markus marveled, as Gavin absolutely busted up. “You gonna help me clean up?”

“Don’t flirt with me, man,” Gavin said, which just made Markus laugh harder.

“Clearly you don’t even know what flirting looks like.” He wiped chocolate out of his beard and Gavin wondered if he should even keep count of the times he wanted to kiss Markus at this point. Or lick chocolate off his chin. Jesus.

“Here, Gavin.” Markus took some kind of weird bacon-wrapped thing from the table and let the chocolate cover it before he offered it to Gavin’s lips. Markus’ fingers cradled his chin and Gavin’s face lit up like a pilot light, woosh! He took a bite just to avoid the mess, even though chocolate couldn’t possibly go with bacon.

The moan he made right there in the middle of Eli’s party was obscene in the extreme. “Oh, that’s so good!” he said, sounding like Frankenstein’s monster, in pain from pleasure.

“You like it?” Markus asked, and smirked as Gavin nodded emphatically. “There’s some good stuff here.” Markus coaxed him down the length of the table, trying things Gavin never would have tried in a million years, occasionally providing the vocabulary to discern the good from the bad. Yeah, they got some looks. For once they were good looks. Maybe other people were interested in what actual flirting looked like, too.

This kind behavior meant that somehow Markus suckered him into examining the art on tap, as well—a lot of people Gavin probably should have heard of but didn’t. But looking at them got a lot of cute smiles and comments out of Markus, so, worth it? The android wasn’t floored like he had been in the library, of course. He did not, Gavin noticed, look any more impressed with this art than with the stuff in his shop. Ha! Take that, snobs!

Markus stopped at one painting, no more impressive than the others except in its size—a ten-foot tall blue man in blobby brushstrokes. Gavin was just glad Markus hadn’t seen the giant portrait of Eli yet. Markus seemed to be searching the brushstrokes for something.

Gavin, forever a cop, tried to look closely too. “What are we looking at?”

“This is one of Carl’s.”

“Oh.” Gavin gave Markus a sidelong glance. “Shit.”

 “He was working on it, the day I…he…”

Gavin filled in the blanks. Thankfully his body knew how to react better than his brain, because his arm came up around Markus on automatic. Markus didn’t brace himself, even after all the shit Gavin pulled. He leaned into it, actually.

They stood like that for a while, maybe ten seconds, before Gavin felt the painting had bullied Markus into depression enough. He looked around for some aspect of it to fight in Markus’ name. “He seriously called it ‘Blue Man’?” he demanded, reading the label. “What kind of a stupid name is that? Aren’t we past that postmodern shit? It’s—” then he saw the photograph next to it. An old man in a wheelchair covered in punk tattoos, smirking up at the android pushing his chair.

“Oh fuck,” Gavin said.

Markus looked. “…Ah.”

Markus was admittedly almost unrecognizable. If he wasn’t so drop-dead gorgeous you’d probably just see the uniform and LED and move on. And, you know, if the house weren’t populated by a bunch of eggheads that carefully read all museum labels. That would have helped.

“That’s you,” Gavin whispered. “There’s—there’s a picture of you in Eli’s house.” Gavin squeezed his head between his hands. “He knows. He must know. I mean, it’s his damn house!”

Markus winced. “I’m actually surprised there aren’t more…”

“More.” Gavin squinted. “What, you knew?”

“I’m a custom-build,” Markus said, uncomfortably. “By Elijah Kamski.”

“Eli built—?!” Gavin realized he was talking a little too loud. He pried the label off the wall—maybe no one saw it—and dashed for the bathroom, dragging Markus with him.

“You really got to stop getting me in enclosed spaces,” Markus said, but Gavin ignored him. The soft white lights momentarily blinded him; the big bathroom fan that was supposed to make you feel like a supermodel merely fanned the flames of his panic.

“He built you. Like—designed you, specifically?”

“He and Carl were close friends. I tried to tell you from the beginning this wouldn’t work.”

“Yeah, but you never said he built you! Dammit!” Gavin paced around the bathroom a little. “Maybe he doesn’t remember you. He’s the CEO of CyberLife, he’s probably designed a lot of androids.”

“Ehhhhh…” Markus see-sawed his head.

“Oh come on! You can’t possibly be that hot shit!” Gavin pressed a fist to his mouth. “Shit, do you think Thing 1 and Thing 2 know?” Maybe Eli already knew, and was orchestrating some insane convoluted plan to humiliate him…

“I already took care of that,” Markus said. Gavin chose not to inquire further about that. And anyway there were no convenient bathroom windows to climb out and escape from.

“Okay. Okay, so we can still save this.” He wasn’t giving up, not after all the sleepless nights and the rescue at the bar and the Furby surgery and making eyes at each other over Markus’ eye plate…they were basically dating for real at this point….

Okay, we’re not gonna think about that right now. Gavin crammed that thought down deep pulled out his phone, which he shoved a Markus. “Change your look.”

“Change my…?” Markus blinked down at the phone and his open code in his hands. “My look—like what?”

“Anything—God, what a human wouldn’t give to be able to do that!”

“…I don’t think you realize how frightening that power really is.”

“Not asking you to paint The Last Supper, you can change it back later. Here.” He patted down his pockets and pulled out his Erkel reading glasses with a crow of triumph. “Glasses, too.”

Markus put them on and handed the phone back. His skin was a few shades darker, his synthetic hair a little longer and a short beard now gracing cheeks that once only held a five o’ clock shadow. The big goofy glasses broke up what would have been a thoroughly-intimidating vibe.

“You’ve been staring at me a lot tonight,” Markus said. His voice was a little lower now, wasn’t it? Sultry.

“Yeah, well—” He tried to think of something genuine to say, not just ‘You have a lot of hot looks,’ which wasn’t really anything to plastic, and anyway that may have been why he stared at Markus on the stairs, or with smudges on his face. But it wasn’t why he was staring now. “Always good to see new parts of you,” he said. Oof, talk about lame. He wasn’t good with words. 

“For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?” Markus said with a grin.

Gavin gasped. “Oh my God, I just read that!” Gavin tried to remember the next line but did not have a supercomputer in his brain, Markus was lucky he even recognized it. He looked up the quote on his phone.  “‘For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them.’”

“We’d make a good Beatrice and Benedick,” Markus said with a nod.

“We’d make a good rap out of it!”

“Mm, I think that’s already been done.”

“Yeah, probably.” Look at him, talking Shakespeare with a cute boy in a bathroom! “If only Eli could see me now, huh?”

“What?” Oh, when had Markus moved so close?

“Eli.” Yeah, Eli. The whole reason they were here. Not to chat up Markus in a bathroom. “Yeah, he’d lose his shit. This wouldn’t even show up in his wildest dreams!”

“…Uh, Eli has dreams about you?”

Gavin grunted and stepped out of the bathroom, thankful for the refreshingly cool blue light.  

“Why do you care so much what he thinks of you?”

Gavin opened his mouth to say something appropriately pissed off. Then he realized that Markus was not an asshole at his core, and the question was genuinely curious. He tossed the painting label in a nearby trashcan. “I don’t.”

“I mean, you were willing to completely change your routine for several weeks. Spend all that time with me. Just to give him one evening’s worth of mild envy and chagrin.”

It wasn’t just for that, was it? Shit. Gavin shook his head to dislodge the thought. Markus was still looking at him with all that barely-concealed intellect and very apparent interest. “Do you have a degree in Psychology or something?”

Markus didn’t even react. Damn, he was patient. What for, what’s worth waiting for in a loser like me?

“I turn forty in a few months.”

“Congratulations. That’s not what I asked.”

“It’s just not something that an android would think about, okay? Eli runs circles around me every chance we get. Even when we were kids. Summers were these twisted games of emotional manipulation orchestrated by his smart home. He was always playing five-dimensional chess with me when I just wanted to play FreeCell. I mean, if he actually played me at FreeCell rather than invent some program to let him cheat, he’d find out I’m pretty good, you know?”

“…Would you like to play FreeCell?”

…Okay, so that was no on the psychology degree. Gavin rolled his eyes. “I’m saying he acts like I’m this dinosaur when he’s a few months older than me. Like I’m some has-been.”

“But you’re not. You know you’re not—for reasons previously mentioned.”

“Yeah. Still. I wish he could just let me, like, have something, you know?”

“You might as well not try to disguise me, then.” When Gavin frowned at him Markus just shrugged. “I belonged to Carl. I’m sure Elijah Kamski would pay a lot of money for me.”

“What?” Gavin scoffed in his best impression of his pretentious cousin. “Don’t be dumb, man!”

 Markus just looked drawn. Gavin felt something uncomfortable knot in his chest. Yeah, they should…probably wrap this up.

Gavin led the way to find Eli, but of course his house was a fucking maze to rival the antique shop. The shark tank room, the pool room, the music room… Markus lingered in that doorway, and Gavin followed his gaze to a grand piano on a balcony above, yet another Chloe playing twinkling notes for a crowd of people slow-dancing. Gavin watched Markus watch her for a second, the android enraptured like he was seeing rain for the very first time.

Pff. Like Gavin could ever sell Markus. What a joke. Gavin was prepared to sell his soul just to make that stupid hunk of plastic smile.

“I’ll be right back,” Gavin said, and headed for the stairs that led to the balcony.

“No—Gavin, don’t,” Markus laughed, tugging on his arm.

“Oh, I know you, you wanna play it!”

“I hope this isn’t just because I made eyes at you in the bathroom.”

“As if, Freckles!” Gavin said, and he would have gone up and tossed that Chloe over the balcony for his favorite fake boyfriend, if not for the laugh that rang across the room. A laugh that haunted his childhood and now made his ears burn in shame.

Elijah Kamski was looking across the dance floor, right at him.

Chapter Text

If Gavin were a Pokemon, Elijah Kamski looked like Gavin’s next evolved form. He was wearing a three-piece suit, probably Hugo Boss, and some sneakers that put the fancy ones he bought for Markus to absolute shame. He had the latest expensive watch on his wrist and the latest digital contacts in his eyes.

Eli gestured with a plate of caviar toward Gavin, like Leonardo Di-fucking-caprio.

“Yeah, no, you’re right,” Gavin decided, backing away. “I’m out. Check, please. Exit, pursued by a bear.”

Markus was a solid wall behind him, his hand closing around Gavin’s elbow with a surprisingly tight hold. “As impressed as I am with your Shakespeare, I’m not letting you keep me another year while you metaphorically level grind for the final villain fight.”

“…It’s called a boss fight.” And yes, this did sort of have that vibe. The open room, the waiting audience. Eli’s grin. “This was a stupid idea.”

He turned and was met with a wall. Markus was glaring down at him.

“Yes, it was, but too late now. You’ve done stupider things, like staying up all night with a children’s toy, and clearing gutters in a blizzard, and facing down drunks in the middle of the night in nothing but your underwear. You’re reasonably competent and fairly responsible, and you’re going over there to get this over with.”

“…Wow, you are really intimidating with the beard.”

Markus squinted. “Sorry.”

“No, hey, don’t apologize, it’s—it’s good. Good look.” He cleared his throat and was very glad for the dim lights. “You think I’m responsible?—”

“For the love of God, go.”

Gavin went. He had a pretty confident stride until he almost got taken out by Connor waltzing past with one of the Chloes. Eli inspecting him like he was one of the boring NPCs in a video game, also not good for morale. He stepped in front of Markus on instinct, and just barely turned it into a lean last second.

“Sup, Eli.” He tried to inject it with all the swagger he would have shown wearing an ugly Christmas sweater, except he wasn’t wearing one, so he probably just looked like a tool. Markus pushed him off almost immediately.

“Gavin.” Eli raised an eyebrow. “I barely recognized you in grandpa’s clothes.”

So, if this was a game (which it was, this was freakin’ Eli after all) the first point went to him. Shit.

“I was just telling Lieutenant Anderson,” Eli continued, then did a double take, a few inches above Gavin’s head. “That…”

Right. Markus. Gavin stepped aside. “Oh, this is—uh—“ He stammered to a stop. Was Markus his original name when Eli, like, invented him or whatever? Shit, he really didn’t think this through. Like, at all. Grandpa’s clothes were suddenly a little too warm.

“John,” Markus said over Gavin’s stammers, and held out his hand. Markus was definitely getting a hang of the handshaking thing, and not many people would be brave enough even to try to handshake Elijah Kamski. Gavin stood up a little taller, and waited for this whole stupid plan to come crashing down around him. Eli knew. He had to know. You didn’t paint the Mona Lisa and then not recognize her in a beard and glasses.

Not that Markus was the Mona Lisa or anything.

“A…pleasure.” Against all odds, Eli actually shook hands. “I was just saying…” He stopped (and Gavin’s heart stopped) as Markus, after the handshake, reached down to hold Gavin’s hand. “Is this your—boyfriend?”

“Plus one. Freckles. Yeah.” Gavin leaned into Markus with a sleazy smile. “Why, don’t you have one?”

Eli’s smile turned to ice—hey, one point for Gavin!

“He’s an antiques dealer,” Gavin managed. “We met at a flea market.”

“Is that right,” Eli said, faintly.

“Oh yeah, we fought over a Monet.”

“Monet? At a flea market?”

Okay, it was admittedly the only fancy antique thing Gavin could think of. He felt Markus tense slightly beside him, but you know, go big or go home. “Maybe it was a Picasso. Somethin’ like that—I let him win.”

Eli turned to took at the android and laughed. “Incredible.” Gavin didn’t like the tone Eli used, or that precise word choice. Sure enough… “I hope he didn’t have to pay you to come here, John.”

Gavin’s ears burned. Another point for Eli.

“What the hell,” Hank snapped, “That’s some fucking manners. Haven’t you seen the video?”

Eli’s victory-smirk glitched a little. “What video?”

“You haven’t seen the video? It’s been out for weeks! What rock have you been living under?”

Eli laughed one of his off-guard laughs. Gavin felt himself returning to his body as Hank pulled out his phone.

“Hey, Connor! Cast this to one of the projectors.”

“That’s not necessary,” Eli said, too late. The moody shapes being projected on the far wall shifted to the video, for the whole party to see. Thankfully it was a shot from behind so no one got to see the changes Markus made to his appearance. They all saw their silhouettes though, and the dance moves, and the absurd number of likes. Techno obliterated the pretty piano music.

“They’ve been together at least that long,” Hank said.

Eli stared, unblinking. For someone who prided themselves on knowing everything worth knowing on the internet before breakfast, that had to be worth, like, what, a thousand points? Ten thousand? Hank gave Gavin a wink as Eli made a graceful, unannounced exit halfway through the song (no one was paying any attention to him anyway now).

“We do look pretty epic,” Gavin muttered, elbowing Markus.

Markus rolled his eyes.

Hank was apparently more than happy to waste his data and a related video started up, and soon everyone was dancing—like, dances from this century, even. Gavin grabbed his android’s hand.

“Figured you’d be sick of dancing,” Markus laughed.

“Come on!” In the commotion Gavin managed to slip up the stairs with Markus in tow. The Chloe playing the piano had understandably bowed out, and the massive thing just sat there gleaming all shiny and new.

“Eat your heart out,” Gavin said, as if he bought the grand piano especially for Markus’ use.

“No one will hear me,” Markus said. He sat down anyway. “Get over here.”

Gavin sat. After a few experimental notes, started to improv along with the music. Sometimes he pointed to keys to have Gavin play. Gavin heard android music before, which he previously deemed a steaming pile of garbage. This stuff made his inside get all tight, in a good way. Like he could feel his soul swelling up in his chest.

“Don’t go getting dust in your eyes, now,” Markus said, nudging him, not missing a beat.

Gavin snorted. As moved as he was, he didn’t want to cry this time. “You’re better than any human I’ve ever…ever.”

Markus looked down at the keys. “I’m not human.”

“Sure you are.”

“I’m really not.”

“I mean—I know.” The swell in Gavin’s chest was growing, painfully, pressing against his ribcage. “But—you know, to me, you’re… you’re…”

“Well done!” Gavin jumped as someone started clapping behind him, though no one down below heard him. “Not many people can play and carry on a conversation at once.” Eli had slipped up onto the balcony after them.

Markus stopped playing as if the piano had caught fire. “Th-thanks.”

Gavin glared at Eli— Didn’t the bastard have enough? “Hey, I’m the one that brought him up here. Haven’t you heard of sharing?”

“By all means,” Eli said. “This seems to be your year, Gavin. Not a year too soon, too—aren’t you turning forty?”

“Forty isn’t that old,” Markus said.

“Stay out of this,” Gavin growled. The order soured in his stomach but Eli had plenty of low-hanging fruit to go after with Gavin alone, and Gavin was used to it. He didn’t need Eli turning on him, too. Or—paying Markus any closer attention than was necessary.

Or hurting Markus’ feelings.

“Come on,” he muttered, and hit the key he’d been given to play. Who even cared what Eli thought, really? They were having fun and Eli couldn’t take that away.

“I’m just impressed that our old-fashioned Gavin managed to secure the affections of an antique-dealing, piano-playing dancer. It’s really… too good to be true.”

The blue room turned red. At least for Gavin.

“Remember that girl you paid fifty dollars to be your date to prom?” Eli continued. “Fascinating how little we change as we grow older.”

That was a three-point shot for Eli, at least. A hundred points? Gavin was having a little trouble conceiving of numbers at the moment. This was, like, an insinuation, one that made him want to barf just thinking about. And of course it was all true, when you thought about it, if Gavin really felt Markus was human, it was more true than Eli realized. But Eli had always been good at finding weak spots in their games. He sunk Gavin’s battleships more often than not.

Gavin was floating slightly behind his body, ready to execute some combat maneuver worthy of his gorier video games.

Markus’ hand tightened around his. The tension in his arm went all the way up his shoulder. Gavin squeezed back. It felt like they were both holding each other back.

Then Markus spoke.

“Apologize.”

“What?” Eli said.

“What?” Gavin asked. “I told you to—”

Markus ignored him. “Gavin helped me out of a bad situation, when no one else did. Maybe it’s old-fashioned but I’m grateful for the people that got me where I am. More than one day a year.” Markus was breathing hard, not like he ran a mile but like he was standing in front of a charging bull.

Gavin, for heart-attack-related-reasons, said nothing. He definitely told Markus to stay out of this. Ordered him, even.

Eli grinned suicidally. “Sure. But we can appreciate the past without being a slave to it.”

The tension left Markus’ arm like a rubber band—Markus stood so fast he knocked the piano bench over.

“Hey, hey hey!” Gavin stumbled between them.

“Fascinating!” Eli whispered, eyes wide with interest, as if standing on the edge of a hurricane.

“Take a fucking hint, Eli.” Gavin turned to Markus and looked him right in the eyes as he ordered, “Stop. It’s not worth it.” And, oh damn, it actually wasn’t worth it. Huh.

“I think you found the one, Gavin,” Eli said. “He really wants to stand up for you. But, uh, ‘want’ isn’t everything.” He leaned over Gavin’s shoulder. “Can you put your money where your mouth is—”

“Alright, that’s it!” Gavin turned so he could push Eli back, Markus forgotten as he grabbed Eli by lapels that cost more than Gavin’s inventory. “Back the hell off.”

“My apologies.” Eli was all smiles as he put up his hands. “Just trying to figure you two out.”

“This isn’t one of your fucking games, Eli.”

“Isn’t it? You are at my party.”

“Yeah, and every year you use it as an excuse to one up everyone. But you can’t take the heat yourself, can you?”

“Yet here you are, every year.”

“Yeah, starting to wonder why myself.”

Gavin did not get arrested by Eli’s private security, because he didn’t throw a punch. Instead, he let go of Eli’s suit and stepped back. “Markus is right. You’re a fucking joke.”

He turned and walked down the stairs, something warm and buoyant in his chest. Shit, he just told off Elijah Kamski and walked away...! How much was that worth? A million points?

“That was so badass.” Markus was right beside him, grinning dazedly.

“Yeah,” Gavin winced as they passed by Hank who gave him a thumbs-up (not that he cared). “Let’s hope we get out of here before he finds what I put in his pocket—”

There was a yelp and a swear from upstairs. Gavin thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t had a chance to drink as he sprinted for the garage.

“What did you do?”

“Ah, one of the lights from my sweater was shorting out, thought it'd make a good hand buzzer. Eli likes to dish it but he can’t take it himself.”

Markus giggled.

“No, seriously, he, uh—he’ll probably call security—” Gavin grabbed his hand and sprinted. “We gotta get out of here!—”

Chapter Text

Markus skidded to a halt in the garage, his hand ripping out of Gavin’s as they reached the car.

“This isn’t the one we came in.”

“Well, when I was putting that battery pack from my sweater in Eli’s pocket, I needed to make room first.” He flourished a set of car keys, then pressed the button.

The expensive but understated sedan Gavin thought the keys belonged to did not light up, however. Instead, a convertible down the line of cars growled to life, undercarriage lights glowing dark red.

“Holy shit,” Markus breathed. He turned to Gavin and laughed. “You’re not—”

“Hey, Eli stole my car and put it on the roof of our high school as his senior prank. I’m just borrowing it.” Gavin stepped toward the car.

Markus grabbed the back of his jacket to stop him. “I’m driving.”

Gavin was clearly distracted by the way the fabric tightened around his chest, and so did not object.

As Markus hopped into the driver’s seat, he checked on the CyberLife app. His screen turned red as it displayed an error code.

Gavin deleted the app and climbed in.

Markus was staring at him. “That’s it?”

Gavin shrugged. “You’re out, man. What, you think I’d lie to an android? I’m not that much of a loser.” He shoved the phone in his pocket. “You gonna run away now or what?” His heart hammered suddenly in his chest, but—that was the deal, right? Most people could leave whenever they wanted, one of the fundamental horrors of life.

“Well.” Markus wet his lips with a quick swipe of his tongue. “Might as well test it out, first.”

“Test what—” Gavin started, then he was flattened against his seat as the car surged forward.

A few minutes later, Gavin was still plastered to the seat, only now he was screaming his head off.

“This,” Markus said, perfectly calm as he performed Tokyo Drift On Ice with the car in an empty parking lot, “Is why you get a Porsche—the best handling you can find on a car today.” His eyes were pure fire.

“Fuck! Where did you learn to drive, an arcade?”

“I drove for Carl all the time.”

“Like hell you did!—not like this!” Gavin braced with one hand on the overhead handle and the other around Markus’ arm on the gear shift.

Markus just laughed like a devil. Gavin did, too.

When they’d finished tearing up the snow in the parking lot Gavin sent a text to Eli about the car. He got nothing in response, just ‘Read.’ Good sign. Maybe Gavin’s sick burns by the grand piano actually put the bastard in his place. At the moment, Gavin didn’t care.

“If you steal this car I will hunt your ass down,” he said anyway.

Markus looked offended. “I’d at least take you home, first. Can’t have my evil human overlord die of exposure.” He frowned at the sky as thunder rumbled. “Or being struck by lightning.”

“Too good an end for me, huh? You can come in, too, you know.” Gavin scratched his chest. “I mean—so you can get the rest of your stuff, not so you can torture and murder me in my home.”

Markus huffed, but he touched the fake phone in his pocket. “Um—yeah, sure.” He left it alone. “Wanna copy down my serial number again or something?...”

Gavin watched the snowy road, some twinkling Christmas lights coming into view up ahead. “Let’s get some real food to eat, first. My treat.”

The drive-thru line for Gavin’s favorite burger place was blissfully empty. Gavin threw the attendants an extra hundred bucks for working Christmas Eve.

“No doctor would ever agree to you eating this,” Markus said as he handed over the greasy bag.

“It’s a treat! Here.” He opened a paper box and waved it around until Markus took a chicken tender just to get him to stop.

He froze as he bit into it. Were androids allergic to fast food...

“Ohhh.”

“Yeah? You like it?”

Markus stared at the rest of the tender in his fingers as he chewed. “There’s no nutritional value in this. How is it—” He finished off the tender and groaned again. “Okay. Fine. You win. Hand me a napkin?”

“Use your shirt,” Gavin said, digging around for his own tenders. Markus gave him such a disgusted look Gavin reached over and wiped his greasy fingers on Markus’s shoulder.

“Gavin! This is cashmere—”

“This is what laundry is for, Freckles!”

“I—” A pause, as Markus licked his fingers. “Carl got so weird about it. If the clothes he bought for me got dirty.”

“Yeah, well Carl ain’t here,” Gavin said, who did not want to be compared to an old man when he was trying to scarf down tendies and fries. “and it’s your clothes now.”

Any normal person would hear this and be more annoyed. Not Markus, though. He looked down at the stain, then grabbed a ketchup packet and squished it right in Gavin’s ear.

“Oh, you asshole!”

They enjoyed a food fight all the way home, which was something you could do safely with an android in the driver’s seat, apparently. It went on until Gavin shoved the last few fries in his mouth, effectively depleting the ammunition. He looked around for extra napkins in Eli’s fancy car but found none, of course. He dug around in the paper bag, and found one last fry, a good one too.

“How about,” he said, as he examined it, “I trust you not to kill me, and you trust me not to keep your serial number?”

Lightning backlit Markus’ profile, and the look Markus gave him out of the corner of his eye. His hand slowly turned over on the gear shift, palm up. “Truce?”

A grin spread across Gavin’s face. “Truce!” He shook Markus’ hand then held the fry to Markus’ lips. Markus had the choice to let go of the steering wheel or of his hand, but did neither, and ate from his hand. Gavin wiped his hand on his own shirt like he didn’t care, no, not at all. “Actually I got something that should help with that.”

Gavin unlocked the door, turned on lights, wiped ketchup off his ear with a paper towel. He expected Markus to be gone every time he looked back. But Markus just hovered near the door like an awkward guest. Gavin left to hunt down the things he’d planned to give Markus, as well as his clothes and charging cord and an old backpack for him to carry everything in. He even added the nicer set of pictures from the photo booth, though he expected Markus to throw them out when he found them.

Markus peeked inside as Gavin offered it. “Extra thirium, too?”

“And a multitool. In case you decide to pick more fights with android haters. Library card’s in the front pocket.”

Markus smiled at him then, a big beaming grin that blew away every single Christmas light, firework, and parade in Gavin’s memory. He fled to the bathroom before he could do something ridiculous like grin back.

He grabbed the last of the nice expensive bottles from the shower to add to Markus’ going away presents. Then put them back. He—he just liked the way they smelled and it wasn’t like Markus sweated or anything. He got out Tina’s manicure kit from under the sink instead. The bottle of nail polish remover was right on top, the extra strength stuff with real acetone had been buried toward the bottom.

“Let’s get your serial number off you,” Gavin said, as he stepped out of the bathroom, reading the label. “Sit down, take your shirt off.”

Markus didn’t move.

“Uh.” Gavin blinked. “Please?”

Markus grinned and sat down at the kitchen table.

“Take your shirt off, I don’t wanna mess it up—if you would, my lord.” Gavin bowed with a flourish.

Markus rolled his eyes but obeyed. The sweater was wrinkled from where he’d been grabbing onto it during their donuts in the parking lot. Then it was all wrinkles as he bunched it up over his chest to keep the duct tape there covered. Gavin didn’t comment on it, just doused a cotton ball in acetone and wiped gently at the serial number and barcode on the back of Markus’ neck, just below where his shirt collar fell.

“No one will be able to put you into an app again, now.” He paused. “Though I guess you disobeyed me easy enough. At the party.”

“Yeah.” Markus smiled to himself, playing with an edge of tape that was rolling up. “I don’t think I would have been able to do it if I had net access. It was an analog workaround.”

“Old school!” Gavin smirked. “You did it for me.”

“Yes, for you. Very dissatisfying.”

The marks came away easily. With a little help from Gavin, Markus adjusted the color of his synthskin, and aside from a lack of freckles it was as if the numbers and barcode had never been there.

“Don’t get on the internet and you should be fine. Internet’s overrated anyway.” Gavin slapped Markus’ shoulders and squeezed them. “Hey! I got something else for you.”

“Something else?” Markus touched the spot the numbers had been—Gavin wondered if his touch sensors were sensitive enough to detect the missing paint. “I haven’t even said thank you for—”

“What’re you thanking me for? This is all part of the deal.” He took a small box out of his pocket and held it out over Markus’ shoulder.

Markus blinked at it. “That’s a ring box.”

“Yeah?” Gavin said, then turned red. “It doesn’t have a ring in it! It’s just a box I had lying around! Why the fuck would I give you a ring?”

“I can think of a few reasons.”

Gavin snatched the box and opened it for Markus as if this erased the embarrassing implication, and revealed blue plastic clips.

Markus frowned, possibly analyzing them, possibly deciding how high Gavin was.

“They’re clips for your chest plate. I had to print them, no way was I gonna pay CyberLife prices for clips. We can get rid of that ugly tape.” Gavin smiled as Markus stared. “It was part of my part of the deal, right? You want help putting them in?”

“Oh—” Markus held his shirt tighter to his chest.

“Come on.” Gavin tapped his shoulder again. “It’ll be a pain for you to do by yourself. Might as well have the expert here in case one breaks and we gotta fish it out.”

Gavin headed for the bathroom to get the lemon oil he kept under the sink for when he needed to get rid of stickers or other crud, and it would do the job for the duct tape. Markus just sat at the table, picking at the hem of his shirt. No wonder, the times Gavin worked on him had been mostly—traumatic.  

It gave Gavin an idea.

He looked at the ingredients in Markus’ fancy body wash. Tea tree oil, citrus, rosemary. Tina had some aromatherapy stuff in her manicure box and he found something that smelled similar to tea tree oil. He took that, and the lemon oil, and went over to the kitchen.

“Go sit on the sofa,” Gavin told him.

“It’s really not a big deal, Gavin…”

“Hey!” He stopped digging around the fridge to smile at Markus over his shoulder. “Trust me, remember? I’d really like to do this for you.”

Gavin found some fresh rosemary Markus had him buy for some recipe, and crushed the leaves in a little bowl he used for soy sauce when he got the expensive sushi takeout. He added the lemon, tea tree, and some olive oil, then stirred it around with his fingers. His reflection looked a little nervous in the window, so he fixed his hair like Markus showed him. Then he just took a deep breath and went over.

Markus was sitting on the sofa, his legs pulled up to his chest, the shirt still all bunched up on his arms. Gavin ignored the spot he usually sat and put his ass down on the edge of Markus’ sofa cushion instead.

He tapped Markus’ knees. “You gotta put your legs down, man.”

“Sorry.” Markus stretched out his legs about halfway, and started to struggle the rest of the way out of his tight shirt. Gavin stopped him with a hand on his elbow.

“Let me.” Carefully, he slid the expensive fabric off Markus’ arms. The reindeer tape was peeling back in places already. Gavin nodded once he had a plan of attack, then handed Markus his phone. “Wanna put some music on?”

Markus eyes were wide. “Are you—”

“Don’t worry, Freckles.” Gavin flashed him a smile, then started to peel the tape back carefully. His oily fingers meant it went pretty well, though the tape left behind a lot of gunk. Classical music started to emanate from his phone, and Gavin let himself actually listen to it while he carefully lifted the chest plate off and did the tedious work of installing the new clips. Markus’ thirium pump was thundering, a glowing orb in his chest. Gavin didn’t mention it, though, and after a while Markus’ thundering thirium pump slowed. He eased Markus back onto the pillows, then carefully snapped the chest plate back in. There were some guitars in the music Markus picked, and it seemed to make the air twinkle.

“Thanks,” Markus mumbled, but Gavin wasn’t finished. He got his little bowl of oils and used his fingers to rub away the residue from the tape. He tried to make it like a massage. His hand rose and fell with Markus’s breaths, which were overly-measured at first but they relaxed after a bit. The sweet- smelling oil bloomed between them, heated by his hands alone since Markus was very cold at the moment, and the synthskin only warmed up because of Gavin’s touch. He looked up a couple times but Markus said nothing, did nothing but watch. So Gavin kept going.

Gavin read that androids had differing areas of touch sensitivity. For instance, Markus had fucking gorgeous pecs but they weren’t as tender. The space above his thirium pump, though, right at his solar plexus, had a fuck-ton of touch sensors. He saved that area for last. He rubbed the oil into Markus’ fake collarbone, the curve of his artificial ribs, before he focused his attentions on what the manuals called the ‘central access point.’ His used his whole hand to work the oil into his synthskin, circling it over and over, long after the gunk from the tape had been rubbed away. After a while something, probably his thirium pump, started to glow through Markus’ chest plate: a soft, diffuse blue. It reminded Gavin of the Lite Brite he found in his dad’s attic as a kid. He glanced up but Markus was still watching his hands, and so he kept going. The light flickered like an internet light during a download, a candleflame, or a purr. Markus was entirely held up by cushions now, eyes half-lidded, blissed out. Gavin was just happy to be this close to the android without wondering if he even wanted to be there.

When he finished, he got a microfiber cloth and carefully wiped away the excess oil. “Okay,” he said, because he didn’t know what to say at the end of a massage and he was, newsflash, fucking terrible at intimacy.

Markus said nothing, and their eyes met. For once Gavin felt like he saw past Markus’ visual beauty (though Markus never looked more beautiful) and connected on some deeper level. Where man and machine perhaps had not yet tread.

“Your emotionally intelligent eye is crying again,” Gavin said. He reached up to brush away the tear.

Markus got there first, then just held his hand there over his eyes. Gavin let his hand hang in the air a second before he let it fall to the back of the sofa.

“I used to give Carl his baths,” Markus said, from under his hand. “Deviants have to fight so hard for independence….” Markus took a slow breath.

“You know, my mom used to do that with menthol when I was sick, I just thought…” Gavin laughed, pinching his nose. “Fuck, you got me crying! It’s, uh. Shit. Happy to do it, I guess.”

Markus gave a brittle smile from between his fingers, then rushed at him—Gavin startled until the android thunked up against his chest and stayed there like a magnet. Gavin blinked, then slowly put his arms around Markus, and they held each other. Gavin realized distantly as Markus’ hands hugged his love handles that, really, he’d been kind of manorexic as a cop, and maybe letting himself go a little was actually a good thing.

Markus sat back, the air between them warm and damp and lemon-scented. “I should go.”

He pushed himself up and stood. Gavin grabbed his arm.

“Wait.” Markus looked back at him and his mouth went dry. “I mean—you don’t have to go right now. We can celebrate. Let’s get drunk or something.” He hurried to the kitchen to grab a beer before Markus could say no. 

“I can’t get drunk.”

“Come on, something’s gotta get an android drunk.”

“I guess some electrical buildup can cause the same thing.” He paused then added, “North showed me how to stick a fork in an electrical socket, once. I was high for a good hour.”

“Fuuuck, seriously?” Gavin looked down at the bottle-opener in his hand and tossed it over. “Use the one by the door. If you cause a power outage I’m suing.”

Markus lit up and went over to the outlet. Gavin watched with interest (and okay a little worry) as Markus just went right up to it and pushed the point of the bottle opener in. He startled back, then returned to the kitchen. He didn’t look much different except his eyes, and his smile was a little goofier than usual. He did not, Gavin noticed, put on a shirt.

“Good hour starts now?” Gavin laughed.

“A very good hour,” Markus said. He rapped the bottle opener against the side of Gavin's beer. "Salut."

Gavin barked a laugh. "Bottoms up." He took a swig.

“So.” Markus leaned forward over his forearms braced against the kitchen counter, making hollows in his collarbones and giving him, like, man-cleavage. “You’ve never given me the nickel tour.”

Gavin snorted. “You’ve lived here for weeks.”

Markus cocked his head, eyes twinkling. “Pretty please?”

Oh yeah, Markus was fuckin’ lit. Gavin laughed, then shrugged and shotgunned the rest of his beer. “A’ight. Come on.”

Chapter Text

“You know, I already showed off a lot of this shit to that reporter lady.”

“Not everything.”

“Ha! That would take more than all night. You said it was all junk, anyway!”

“So prove me wrong, Gavin. Show me your top ten favorite things.”

…So, Gavin started off showing Markus the possessed Kylo Ren helmet. They took turns trying it on and doing the voice and hearing the creepy echo that sounded like ghosts whispering. Markus startled like a cat when he heard it, and Gavin laughed louder than he had in a long time, only one beer in.

He played a song for Markus on the 32-disc CD changer and watched Markus’ face as he closed his eyes, as if Gavin’s teenage anthems were worthy of a futuristic android’s undivided attention.

He witnessed Markus get a hundred-point streak on the vintage Bop-It and despaired for the future of mankind.

He showed Markus how to use the ham radio with the excitement of a little kid, and promised himself he’d get back into the hobby someday soon. Nerdy as it was, Markus absolutely beamed.

“Carl would have loved you,” Markus said, then fiddled with a dial. “Sorry. I talk about him too much.”

“I get it. You cared about him.” He watched Markus play with the dial absently. “Why do you care about this?”

Markus spun the dial back and forth, maybe trying to pinpoint some station. “Just trying to figure you out. I guess I wanted to see if I actually liked learning more about you, when given the choice.”

“Oh!” Gavin rubbed his neck. But Gavin always performed badly on tests, so—whatever.

Markus just grinned and unhooked the headset in a clumsy and unfairly-sexy move. “I think you’re forgetting a whole category of favorite individuals.”

“Oh, shit!” Gavin flinched. “The pets! I mean, duh, yeah, forget the rest! I wanted to show you Atraxas, I think she’s working now…”

Gavin led the way to the pet shop and where he’d put Atraxas up on a high shelf while she finished out her convalescence. She wasn’t up on the shelf, though. She sat front and center on the pet shop table, her fur all brushed and fluffy.

“Did you move her or somethin’?” Gavin asked.

“You should hit the lights,” Markus replied.

“What? Why?”

Markus made direct eye contact with him and said, “You should hit the lights.”

Gavin squinted, but turned off the lights, so the only light came from the glow of the pets and the big pet shop sign. It was kind of cool and not a sight Gavin often saw. Kind of like Christmas lights.

Suddenly, Atraxas started to sing. All the pets did. Well, the ones that could make noise did. The others flashed their lights and screens in time with the music. It took Gavin a second to recognize the song amongst the reverberating static and autotuned notes: a terrifying robot a capella version of ‘Thank You For Being A Friend’.

“Oh my God,” Gavin said into the deathly silence after the last note rang out.

“It was supposed to be after you helped save that android,” Markus mumbled. “I was, um. Just trying to say thank you? I guess? Obviously.” He dug his thumb into his palm. “In our defense, it sounded a lot better in rehearsal.”

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Gavin breathed.

“…Okay, that is slightly worrying, but I’m flattered. We’re flattered.”

“I mean, as if anyone needs proof you’re human! You’re over here conducting Furbies like the national symphony orchestra, like what the fuck! You’re incredible!!”

Gavin turned to Markus to, well, he wasn’t sure, maybe hug him, at least pat him on the back if he chickened out? But Markus was frowning. “What?”

Markus glared at the floor. “Gavin, I’m really not human.”

Gavin snorted and punched him lightly on the arm (damn it he missed his chance for a hug). “Of course you are, numbskull!”

Markus didn’t respond, just kept rubbing his hand. Gavin stormed around a little, angry all of a sudden.

No, not angry.

“I mean, if you’re not human, what are you?” He forgot Markus’ hairstyling tips and pushed all his locks back in one big handful. “I mean—if you’re not human, then I’m really fucked up, man.”

His voice sounded weird. All raw and squeaky like a Furby’s. It was absolutely pathetic. Shit, why did he say that? Markus finally looked up at him and, of course, Gavin turned away like the cowardly fuck he was. The eyes of the Furbies and Poo-Chis and other robotic animals judged him.

“I should go.” Markus said, for the second time. “There’s androids out there that need my help, and….”

Gavin stopped him there with a “Yeah, sure.” Markus did not have to list all of the many reasons he had to leave. Gavin hurried back downstairs, unlocked the door, got Markus’ backpack for him.

“You know my shop hours,” he said, sounding thankfully all-business once again. He pressed his back into the door and held out the bag.

“Of course.” Markus took the backpack from him. “Completely unpredictable.”

Gavin forced himself not to laugh at that. As soon as Markus went through the door this would all be over. He could go back to being a recluse like Eli and a loser unlike Eli. Pretend this was all a wet dream. Thank you for being a friend, he did not say.

Thunder rolled over head as he closed his hand around the doorknob, and a static shock jumped up his arm. The lights flickered in time with a flash of lightning, then went out.

“Shit,” Gavin said, into the darkness. Markus laughed at him, which was not what he needed right now. “Oh, you think this is funny? You’ll get struck by lightning if you go out in that. ” He snatched the backpack back, as if this could stop Markus leaving if he wanted to.

Markus let him have it easily. “I’d appreciate that. Thunderstorms scare the hell out of me.”

“…No kidding?”

“Long story. I can at least stay to make sure your power comes back on.”

“I’m not a little old man.” Markus laughed again and Gavin almost barfed from the squirming worms in his stomach.  “Whatever.”

They went back to the sofa, each on their designated cushions this time, and watched the bit of snowy street through the narrow basement window together. Lightning flashes and rumbling thunder turned into an ongoing heartbeat. It was not unlike the pulsing glow of the light in Markus’ chest. Lightning in winter was rare, right? Maybe this was a sign, or something...

Gavin hurriedly grabbed the controllers from under the couch and held one out to Markus, before he could get any ideas.

“Power’s out, remember?” Markus said, not unkindly.

“Oh. Right.” He dropped them and rubbed his palms on his knees instead. He got ideas whether he wanted them or not.

“Just because I’m not human,” Markus said, “doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings.”

Gavin, to put it lightly, took a second to wrap his head around this. “…Okay.”

“For what it’s worth, you make me feel more human than any other person has.”

“I mean, how many humans have you met?” Gavin scrubbed his face. “Okay, I know I shouldn’t say this either, but… it’s been good, having you around.”

“It hasn’t entirely sucked,” Markus revised. “The slavery thing was a real stumbling block.”

Gavin laughed. “That’s fair.” He was lying in bed with Markus next to him all over again, ready to spill his guts. “That was a dumb question I asked you, when I wanted to know your ‘type’. Androids probably don’t even do the love thing like humans do. Less boys and girls, more ones and zeroes. Right?”

“There might be some overlap.” Markus didn’t look at him either. The dark made them strangers. The drum of thunder hid any pounding hearts that might be in the area. “I’m attracted to passion. And conviction. Stubbornness, I guess. I thought I was a Romeo guy but it turns out I prefer the Benedicks in the world. Unfortunately.”

“Yeah, you’re fuckin’ doomed, man,” Gavin agreed, having only a vague idea of what he was talking about, and pretty sure he misunderstood. He hugged himself around his roiling stomach. “I don’t envy the poor dumbass that falls in love with you.”

“I think you’re just saying that because I’m pretty.”

“Oh, quite the opposite, Freckles. I’ve seen your ugly side. Did you know you make the worst noises in standby?”

“What?”

“Yeah, these arrhythmic clicks from your jacked-up parts, it’s like water torture at night, I swear.” Gavin listed on his fingers as Markus giggled—okay, because Markus giggled. “You’re a know-it-all, you’re too nice, completely naïve…I mean, I thought I had pretty low standards but then I met you!”

“Oh really!” Markus laughed.

“The perfect android angle is such a sham,” Gavin insisted, weirdly breathless. “Trust me, if you were perfect I couldn’t stand the sight of you.”

“I guess it takes trash to know trash,” Markus said, like he was running a marathon.

“Right,” Gavin said, and turned to Markus just as Markus turned to him, and their mouths crashed together in a kiss. Lightning flickered. Thunder became a feeling.

Gavin jerked back. So did Markus. They panted in each other’s faces for a second before Gavin remembered how his tongue worked. “What was that, huh?”

“You’re the one that kissed me,” Markus said. His hand was still gripping the back of Gavin’s neck.

“Ha! Why would I kiss you?” He didn’t move his hand from the valley between Markus’ perfect pecs. The worms in Gavin’s stomach all turned to trembling cocoons, about to burst. “What, do you—like me or something?”

“No! Of course not!” Markus blinked a couple of times. “Why, d-do you like me?”

“Hell no!”

They breathed, the air heavy with ozone and lemon oil, and kissed again. Gavin’s hand slid up to wrap around Markus’s shoulders. Even the thunder went quiet.

“You’ve watched a lot of nineties movies, haven’t you?” Markus purred against his lips.

“Yeah. Why?”

“You kiss like it.”

“Fuck you,” Gavin said, then, “Show me?”

“Alright, relax your mouth? Keep your head still. Stick your tongue out, just a little?...” Kiss. Gavin felt it in the pit of his stomach. “Mmm. Yeah. Like you’re licking a sucker…”

“I am licking a sucker,” Gavin smirked. Kiss. The world exploded in light.

“I’m gonna murder you in your sleep.” Kiss. “Never change.”

Markus’ huge pianist’s hand engulfed his thigh and squeezed. The formerly very badass police detective’s breath caught.

“This okay?” Markus asked.

“Yeah.” Gavin died and went to heaven, but yeah, totally. He kissed Markus with all the skill and enthusiasm of a complete and utter amateur. “This okay?”

“Yeah, that’s—” Markus panted, “Mm—Push your jaw forward a little? Mm. Yeah, that’s perfect…”

Gavin, inexperienced with perfection, understandably had zero chill about this. Markus collapsed in a perfect pirouette into the cushions, and Gavin corkscrewed around his body, attacking Markus with his perfect kisses. Markus melted like a snowball in hell. He sizzled. It took Gavin a second to remember he had other body parts besides a mouth and brushed Markus’ sensitive solar plexus with the backs of his knuckles. He was rewarded with a gasp. He pressed his palm into it, and the gasp turned into a purr that vibrated down Markus’ whole body. Gavin nuzzled each freckle as lightning illuminated them, then buried Markus deep in the cushions like a phone vibrating with texts you didn’t want anyone to see. Markus let himself be stowed away by his clumsy human hands. It was almost certainly the biggest fucking honor Gavin had ever been paid.

Could he ask? Could he offer? The shop was clearly big enough for the both of them. Maybe Markus could become the best ten things he had here. The best one hundred things. If Markus said yes he’d possibly execute every single badass action move in every video game he ever played.

Gavin sat up to ask, and the doorbell’s loud chime scared him so bad that he instantly threw out his back.

Chapter Text

“Damn last-minute shoppers!”

“Are you okay?” Markus asked.

“What the hell are they doing trying to buy shit in a thunderstorm, huh?” Gavin continued as he rubbed his back. “God damn. The spirit of Christmas is dead.”

“I’ll go get it, Gavin.” Gavin had his eyes squeezed shut but he could hear the android’s stupid grin.

“No, no no.” Gavin pressed Markus further into the cushions among the remotes and pocket change as he shoved to his feet. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

He waddled to the door, pulling his shirt back down, skin still tingling from Markus’ hands—damn, his fingernails. He didn’t bother to fix his hair. Let someone, for once, think he’d been caught going at it, you know? Let that image go viral for all he cared. The asshole outside was gonna get torn apart. He took his sweet time in case, hopefully, whoever it was just left. But he’d be damned if he was going to let someone take him for an easy mark and break a window. He shuffled toward the stairs.

A bolt of lightning illuminated a silhouette at the downstairs door before he could get there.

“The fuck?”

The doorbell rang again. You had to go down past a No Tresspassing sign and squeeze past his car to get to the downstairs door. Gavin, wincing, snatched the baseball bat from behind the door before he opened it.

“Who the fuck—!”

“Gavin. I’m so glad I caught you.”

Gavin froze. “… Eli ?”

Eli stood outside, wrapped in some fashionable overcoat, looking a little bit like a demon in the dark.

“Just thought I’d drop off your car,” he said, pleasantly.

“Huh?” 

“And get my own back?”

“Oh.” Gavin’s head was still vibrating from Markus’ last kiss. “Uh—yeah, sure—”

He turned to get the keys which was his first mistake. Eli walked right inside. Gavin barely got to let out an annoyed, “Hey!” when the power came back, illuminating the entire downstairs.

Markus was standing on the entertainment center, still shirtless but with his backpack on, one arm already out the basement window. 

“Ah,” Eli said, beaming. “I thought you looked a little flushed, Gav.” He bowed slightly. “Good to see you again, Markus.”

“What the—get out of here!” Gavin snarled. “Markus, what the hell are you…?”

Gavin was suddenly aware of how silly his voice sounded, because, come on, uneducated Furbies could tell what was going on. And, more importantly, he said ‘Markus,’ not John. Realizing the mistake felt like two hot pokers getting sheathed in his ears. He barely noticed, since the entire scope of perception was taken up by Markus standing frozen on the furniture, one bicep out the window like Batman probably after a one-night stand. There hadn’t even been a one-night stand for him to flee from. Gavin's moderate-to-severe lumbago was forgotten in an instant.

“You knew he was Markus all along, didn’t you,” he said.

“Not at first," Eli said. "Given the, aha, interesting liberties you took repairing him. But a father always recognizes his son eventually.”

A blush spread across Markus’ neck.

“Sicko,” Gavin muttered.

“You’re the one that made him seven feet tall. I wonder why. You did call him Markus at the party, by the way.” He grinned as Gavin blinked, trying to remember. “As far as cover names go, John is a little generic.” He walked right over to Markus and held out his hand. “What has he done to you, my dear?...”

Gavin smacked his hand away. “Leave him alone.”

“Take it easy, Gav,” Eli laughed lightly. “I’m not going to break your toy.”

“He’s not a toy! He’s my–!” But now, here, with Markus halfway out the window and when it mattered most, he didn’t say it.

Eli glanced over his head at Markus. Gavin would have killed to see Markus’ expression but he didn’t dare take his eyes off his cousin. “Don’t tell me you’ve really fallen in love with him?”

Well, at least Gavin didn’t deny it. That had to mean something. Never mind that Markus was in the actual act of fleeing the scene. Giving Markus the ability to flee had been the whole point, right? He leaned back into Markus like he always did and the android let him—that had to mean something, too. Once he kicked Eli the fuck out they could talk things over.

“Oh,” Eli tucked his chin. “That’s sweet, Gavin. Though, honestly I’m not surprised. I mean, how many Christmases have you seen that painting of Markus inside my house?”

“…What painting?”

“The blue one? With the label you tried to get rid of. Carl loved to use Markus as a model for his paintings, for obvious reasons. Everyone falls in love on sight. I should have charged him royalties.” He pulled out his phone. “I have a couple others actually. Carl’s works are highly stylized but I still feel he really captures the soul of his subject….”

Gavin’s ears rang. “Y-yeah, right! I’m not that impressionable.” Sure, he probably saw the painting a few times, but—but it wasn’t of Markus, it just wasn’t! it didn’t look anything like him. Nothing like his soul. Markus wasn’t blue or, or smudgy, he was warm and perfect and…

He glanced over his shoulder so they could laugh about this, but Markus’ sad eyes punched him in the gut. He pretended not to notice. “Whatever. I heard it all from Tina already. I don’t fuckin’ care what you think of me.”

“Of course not,” Eli said, too kindly. “As precious as this little romantic drama is, that’s not why I’m here.” He looked up at Markus and said, “I want to offer you a job.”

“A job?” Markus asked.

“Good luck!” Gavin laughed, and walked off. Markus needed no protection from that.

“What were you going to offer him?” Eli said, suddenly harsh. He glanced at Markus’ backpack.“A care package and a one-night stand you could hate yourself for later? Or maybe you just expected him to ask you nicely for what he wanted, like the kindly owner you are.”

Guilt clawed the i side of Gavin's rib cage. He opened his mouth to shout some retort, probably from one of those online forums he read. Markus spoke first.

“No one owns me. I don’t want a job from you.” 

He turned back to the window. Gavin grabbed his arm on instinct.

“H-hey, wait a second, Freckles...”

“I've got to go.” It was almost an apology. Almost.

Kamski spoke into the pathetic little silence. “You know, Carl wanted me to look out for you if anything ever happened. I’ve been trying to find you ever since the accident.”

It was like flipping a switch. Suddenly Kamski was kind, concerned; Markus’ stony gaze softened. His fucking eyes shone like a damsel in distress.

“Dude, you let Carl throw him away,” Gavin reminded everyone present. 

“Yes,” Eli replied, completely shameless. “You really don’t know the treasure you found.”

His better-looking, richer, more charming cousin offered his hand to Markus. His better-looking, kinder, more ethical ex-fake-boyfriend took it. Gavin almost had a heart attack, but you know, no big deal. He went back to the couch and made himself available for when Markus saw through his magic spell. Eli could let the fucking door hit him on his way out.

“Markus wasn’t always just a pretty face,” Eli said, walking around Markus like he was a statue in a museum. Whatever algorithms that let Markus stand up for himself before completely failed him now, because he just stood there and let it happen. “He made quite the name for himself a few years back. Started his own revolution for android rights. They said he could even make deviants out of other androids, with just a touch.”

Gavin folded his arms, remembering the store clerk Markus tried to grab, the tortured android at the bar. “…Guess he might’ve mentioned it. None of my business.”

“But it is mine.” Eli finally stopped in front of Markus. “You were right, Markus. CyberLife is finally starting to recognize the potential in deviancy. Your cause failed because you saw us as your enemy, but we’re not. With you on CyberLife’s side we can change the way people think about androids, as a united front. You could think of yourself as a liason, if you like. Help us understand who deviants are and what we can do for them. We can fight for android freedom and equality together. Completely change the culture.”

Gavin laughed again. “You seriously think he’d fall for that?” He waved Markus over to join him on the couch.

Markus did not. He was frowning at Kamski like he did before they rescued that android. Like, with actual hope.

“No!” Gavin said, louder, scarier. He jumped to his feet as heat spread down his arms and legs. “No fucking way! Markus!”

“The only problem is,” Eli continued, “Androids currently have no rights. In order to give you full access to CyberLife’s staff and technologies, Gavin, as your owner, would have to formally ‘give’ you over to me. Purely as a formality, of course, in the interest of company transparency.”

Markus and Eli turned to him.

Gavin’s heart was hanging out somewhere between his ears. “You’re actually listening to this dick?” He forced another laugh, but Markus didn’t join him. “You’re not mine, remember? You don’t have a fucking serial number anymore!”

“I don’t want Markus to feel forced in any way,” Eli said, “The paperwork is just that: paperwork to satisfy skeptics intent on seeing our project fail.” Kamski took a folded paper from his coat. “Just a signature will do, Gavin.”

“Not fucking likely.” Gavin turned to Markus. “Come on, man, you don’t really believe him!"

Markus swallowed, eyes cast to the side. “I’m… not happy about it. But if it’s the only way to really change minds... It’s not really that bad, if it’s just a formality…”

“Yeah, it kind of fucking is. If this wasn’t shady as hell, Eli wouldn’t ask.” He jabbed a finger at Eli, “I know him! He’s always playing some kind of damn game."

Markus shook his head, like a lifetime of pranks and mindfuckery could be easily dismissed. “You don’t know what this could mean. If CyberLife is willing to work with androids like me, I mean, the lives it could save! We’d have the political weight to negotiate for actual rights. I can’t pass up this chance.” Markus had the gall to smile. "This could be the start of everything for us. Please, Gavin."

Gavin felt his shriveled heart snap like a twig. The hope in Markus' face was more beautiful than any dumb painting. But Gavin knew trash when he saw it. He knew better. "I’m not gonna enable this horse shit plan. I won't sign anything saying I own you. Sorry.” He wasn't sorry, though.

Markus blinked, warmth draining from his eyes. "You seemed fine with owning me when you needed something from me. Now that I need something, you have morals."

“Hey, don't put fucking words in my mouth," Gavin snapped. "I'm doing the right thing here–"

“Is my freedom conditional to you?”

“Well, apparently it should be!” Gavin winced. That came out wrong. "What, you need money or something? Here!” He whipped out his wallet and pulled out all his cash. “There, take it, take the mellotron, take everything!” He was shouting things he didn’t mean,  all in the wrong order, wrong time. He didn’t mean to be shouting at all. He threw the money on the ground.

“You are so— ignorant!” Markus didn't even look at the money. “At least he wants to actually help me do more than free one broken android at a bar!”

“Oh, you got a hard-on for my cousin now?" Gavin's laugh was almost hysterical. "Bet you knew who he was all along.” 

“I should have, you two look and sound the same! Why would I even hold onto that?”

“I dunno, humiliate me?"

“I thought elaborate plans to embarrass others was your department, Gavin. You’re paranoid.”

“Well, you’re a naive idiot! You’re not a hero that’s destined to save the world, okay? You’re just some piece of shit loser, like me!”

Eli muttered in the corner of the room, “And there it is.” He smiled like this horror movie was one he’d seen before. Of course he had. Gavin proved every Christmas that he was trash-hawking rat, the kind of jackass that would draw on a Rembrandt with permanent marker.

“This is what he wants,” Gavin said, in the same moment he realized. “He’s making us fight so he comes out looking good!” It was probably the first time ever that Gavin guessed one of Eli’s games. He was too shocked to notice Markus’ fists clenching. "Listen to me, man, he's–"

“What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time?"Markus was shouting, his beautiful voice fuzzed out with static. "I had to do everything you told me! No matter how stupid, or humiliating, or-or wrong! You made me lose the only people in my life I had left and you don’t get to tell me what to do now just so you can look good.”

“I-I know, alright? Markus, I’m just trying to help you—”

“I’m sick of your goddamn help!”

“Well--tough shit.” Gavin pulled out his phone. He still probably had the CyberLife app and serial number in his cache. If Markus was going to be this supreme of a dumbass, he'd make him listen. He could apologize later.

Markus snatched the phone from him and slammed it into the floor with android strength. The original vintage Blackberry, on which Gavin had installed 7G or whatever they were using these days, its hard drive filled with pictures of Markus and texts about Markus and a thousand other stupid things, shattered into a thousand stupid pieces. Gavin chased it. Markus shoved him. They almost actually fought, for couple seconds at maximum, until Markus caught Gavin by the neck.

“If you try that again, I’ll kill you,” Markus growled. “Understand?”

Gavin nodded. He couldn’t breathe.

Markus thrust him at Eli. “Sign it.”

Gavin signed the paper. Markus dropped him and stormed out into the snow. Gavin was too busy gasping on the floor to see if he looked back.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Kamski said, flatly, like Gavin was the one that fucked up and the only one that didn’t know it. Gavin told him he was the one that fucked up, that this wasn’t over that he’d figure out a way to get Markus out of whatever sick game he was playing. He coughed instead. Kamski closed the door gently on his way out. 

Gavin sank into a kitchen chair and rubbed his throbbing neck. Gray-green bills fluttered around his feet as the heat kicked on. The torn photo strip from the photo booth lay among them. Something squeezed in Gavin's chest.

He kicked the picture, and the table, and the kitchen chair. He tore up the photo strip into tiny bits and threw it into the trash. Then he settled, quiet and still like the snow. The clock blinked twelve at him. He stared at it for a long time before he realized it was just because the power had gone out, and there was nothing significant in it at all.

Chapter Text

Markus said nothing as Mr. Kamski talked to him about all the incredible things he’d be doing at CyberLife. He wasn’t really listening either, watching his HUD to make sure the red walls didn’t come back. He broke Gavin’s phone pretty good though. No way he was taking over again.

His hand burned where he’d squeezed the tender skin of Gavin’s neck. The points of his fingers left bright white marks when he’d let go. He shouldn’t have thrown Gavin around like that. Of course, Gavin knew exactly which buttons of his to push. He always had from the beginning. Markus couldn’t stand it.

“…So what did he have you do all day?” Mr. Kamski asked. “Modeling vintage Hot Topic in the shop window?”

Markus had to restart his voice simulator. “Not much. He did let me design some of the window displays. I learned how to play video games…we went grocery shopping together…” That was the problem. Gavin never let him figure out where they stood. Ordered him around then gave him big choices. Told him to shut up one minute and to discuss systemic oppression the next. Of course he got—confused.

“Video games! Really? You’ll be all set for CyberLife.”

“I got pretty good at them. Where’s my backpack?” He’d torn it off sometime during the argument. He wanted to squeeze it to his chest like he had Gavin at the mall. If Only Gavin knew that moment of teasing had been soothing. He should have suggested that Gavin come along and see everything was alright. He just saw Gavin’s fat working man’s knuckles around that phone and—

“I put it in the trunk, remember?” 

Markus didn’t remember seeing Mr. Kamski do that, but didn’t want to call his new employer and the man who held the future of deviant androids in his hands a liar. “Carl always spoke fondly of you,” he said, because people liked to hear that sort of thing.

“Really?” Mr. Kamski raised an eyebrow. “If you’re looking for stories about him, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint. After I gave you to him, I didn’t see him again until the funeral. You and I certainly never got to become the friends I had hoped we would be.”

Markus laughed a little. “Carl always said he wasn’t good at—being a friend…” The phrase jumped out unplanned and he almost lapsed into guilty silence before he frowned. “Didn’t you talk to Carl after the accident? To try to find me?”

“You’d already been thrown away by the time I heard about it,” Mr. Kamski said, after a second. “No, loyalty was not one of Carl’s strong points. He got a new android a few weeks after you were gone. Just an off-the-shelf model.”

…That wasn’t exactly an answer, but the mention of a new android sort of derailed his thoughts. Would Gavin get a new android to keep him warm when the heating went out? He wished he had his backpack to squeeze.

Mr. Kamski slowed to a stop in front of CyberLife Tower’s impressive gates. “I’m afraid we’ll have to check your phone.”

“I don’t have a phone.”

Mr. Kamski frowned at the square shape in his pocket.

“Oh, it’s—just a fake…” Markus took out the ‘phone’. He hadn’t removed it from the panda-shaped case. Mr. Kamski laughed as he waved off the guards.

“Gavin really didn’t trust you, did he?”

Markus wanted to say that it would have looked less ridiculous without the case, he only left it on because Gavin smiled every time he saw it, though Gavin probably didn’t know it. He wanted to say that actually, he and Gavin trusted each other a lot, at least right up until Gavin took out his phone and Markus cut off his airway. But Mr. Kamski already caught him trying to slip away while Gavin’s back was turned, that was enough humiliation for Gavin, right? Even if their relationship was as fake as the phone in his hand.

They drove on. Markus hugged his ridiculous panda phone in lieu of anything else.

It was just that Markus never said goodbye before. Not to Carl, not to his friends. Obviously he couldn’t stay, but if someone told him how to make it easier…

He stepped out of the car before CyberLife’s main entrance. A few lights were on, even on Christmas Eve, but the place was more or less deserted.

“Yep, come on out.” Mr. Kamski was speaking into a phone. “Shouldn’t be a problem. He didn’t even have one.”

“…Didn’t we have to leave our cell phones?”

Mr. Kamski covered the receiver. “Just you.” He hung up and smiled. “Shall we?”

Several RK900 units fell into step behind them as they made their way through a side entrance and downstairs. His backpack was nowhere to be seen. He reminded himself as they stood in an elevator drawing them up through a glass shaft like a syringe that this wasn’t one of Gavin’s hack-and-slash movies.

The doors slid open, revealing three android bodies suspended from a web of cables and assembly arms. Their bodies were crisp black shapes against a wall of pale gray diagnostic screens, so their models were easy to tell, even with the missing parts.

Markus made some kind of unidentifiable noise as he rushed forward. He almost reached the nearest computer when an arm jerked him back as if on the end of a wire.

“Take them down, now!” Markus shouted at the RK900 holding him. “Those are my friends!”

For a half second he did really expect the RK900s to obey him, and Mr. Kamski to look shocked and apologetic like, well, only Gavin had.

“Do you know how many deviants I had to round up,” Mr. Kamski said, “before I found any that knew you? Pretty incredible.”

Markus tried to interface with the RK900 but they were wearing armor, and the connection dissipated harmlessly through the plastic. He swore enough to make Tina’s pink Furby proud.

“Markus,” Mr. Kamski put a hand on his shoulder as the android screwed his arms behind his back. He had the gall to look stern. “I didn’t build you for foul language. I just need your serial number, then you can join them.”

“Join them in what?” Markus snapped.

“Simulations. They’re like… games. In the entire world, you are the only android that came close to fomenting an actually deviant rebellion. I mean—it’s incredible. Your perspective will be invaluable in planning for future problems.”

“…So Gavin was right.”

Mr. Kamski snorted. “Oh, if only he were around to hear you say that! You'd make his year.”

Markus tried to send a call to Gavin through his HUD. But he hadn’t had cell service in years, and there wasn’t any Wi-Fi in the area. The pieces of Gavin’s phone probably still lay strewn on the floor.

“I guess it’s amazing what a lifetime of bullying will do to your survival instincts,” Mr. Kamski was saying. “But you have to admit, I was kind of obvious.”

“You lied to me.” Gavin never lied, not like this.

“Honestly, at this point I think deviants want to be caught. You make it so easy, you’re all so—trusting. We’ll really need to play around with that in the simulations. Now, I don’t want this to be an issue.” He stepped back as Markus tried to get enough leverage to kick him. He stepped up to the computer and tapped a few keys. “The simulations are fully immersive, I think you'll really enjoy them if you give them a chance. I need your serial number, though. I assume you have it memorized or this is going to be a very short partnership." He glanced back. "Come on. Do I really have to threaten your friends for this?”

Markus stared at Mr. Kamski’s fingers on the keyboard. “Gavin knows what you’re doing. He won’t give up.”

“Gavin? Not give up? You really overestimate his self-esteem. Though… I think you might be the only person who’s ever had that kind of faith in him.” There was, for a moment, a glare in the man’s eyes. Gavin's plan to make his cousin jealous was maybe more successful than they all thought.

Mr. Kamski turned back to the computer. “I won’t ask again, Markus.”

“S…” Markus swallowed hard, looking at his friends’ still bodies on the wall, squeezing the useless panda phone in his shaking hand. “Six eight four, eight four two…”

Chapter Text

Gavin decided not to open his store during the awkward days between Christmas and New Year’s. He disconnected the doorbell too, though people kept knocking. He ignored them and instead tortured himself looking at all the places Markus no longer was. The context still surrounded him, though: the pile of manga next to the photo booth, the neatly organized cassette tapes behind the counter, the Furbies still in choir formation. Markus was gone like a picture cut out of a magazine.

Gavin started out eating the leftovers from the neatly organized and well-stocked refrigerator (sure, he could have thrown them out but he was depressed, not insane). When those ran out, he ate through the other healthy flavorful groceries Markus picked out for him, then the canned soup and frozen pizzas from the pre-Markus era. He made it well into the New Year. Ignoring texts was easy when his phone didn’t work. What did he have to do for the foreseeable future, anyway? Taxes?  

…Eventually, he did have to leave to put the trash out. He felt like some subterranean thing come to the surface. A post-apocalyptic mole man barely surviving while androids ruled above.

An android stood behind the dumpster, leaking thirium out of an arm which was missing. It—he—froze as Gavin saw him.

“Get out of here!” Gavin told him—it, hoping distantly for catharsis and closure.

The android didn’t move. It looked back at Gavin’s doorstep.

“I don’t have any thirium,” he snapped. “Your advocate has left the building. You’re on your own.”

The android just kept watching him.

He stomped his foot at it. “Fuck off!”

The android fled. Gavin swung the bag of trash into the dumpster, then turned back and saw a familiar pack lying half-buried in snow. He picked it up and found Markus’ thirium still inside, all his clothes, the library card, too. Gavin looked around stupidly, but, duh, the android probably ditched it. You know, after threatening to kill him.

He left the stupid bottles of thirium on the doorstep, and went back inside to drink his own bottle of novelty ‘Vulcan brandy’ that no one ever bought. He hugged Markus’ old clothes to his chest and smelled them, like the little freak he was.

The next day, hungover, he went to the library and checked out a few books on Carl Manfred. He discovered a new method of self-flagellation as he examined picture after picture of Markus. At least some past, soulless version of him. He really was the old geezer’s muse, but the books talked about him only in sidebar or caption. “Carl Manfred, here pictured with a custom model RK200.” “The RK200 android ‘Markus’ frequently acted as Manfred’s model.” “Carl Manfred and android at the 2037 Met Gala, wearing Rabanne.” There was so much more Gavin wanted to know. He should have asked.

On his way home he went by CyberLife Tower. He got turned away by helmeted guards who might have been human or android, and directed to the nearby distribution center.

“I’m just trying to return this,” Gavin told the blandly smiling android at the front desk. He showed her the backpack with library card returned and clothes repacked, only a little damp from the snow. “It’s for Markus. Uh. The RK200 android, if you don’t know who that is… Can you just tell him I’m here? I just wanna talk, doesn’t have to be alone or anything.”

“Would you like to schedule an appointment with a CyberLife sales representative?” she asked. “We have a wide selection of the newest models in stock, and if you upgrade before the end of the month, you can save twenty percent on—”

“No, I—look, I’m Elijah Kamski’s cousin, okay? Gavin Reed?”

“Reed’s Records and Collectibles,” the android said.

“Yes! Yeah!”

“Mr. Kamski’s office can be reached by visiting our website, or through the CyberLife app.”

“No. No—fucking hell. I want to speak with Markus, I just…” Gavin looked around, then leaned over the counter. “I just wanna make sure he’s okay.”

The android cocked her head, and there was a long silence during which, presumably, she sent Eli a video clip of this incredibly stupid exchange and Eli died of laughter. Gavin was at this point a certified masochist, so he waited.

“Mr. Kamski asked me to tell you that Markus is currently busy,” she said eventually. “Working to improve the next generation of androids in our research and development department.” She gave him an extra smile. “He is ‘doing okay!’”

Gavin blinked. “Really?”

“Mr. Kamski also asked me to remind you that you do not have ownership of Markus any longer, and he has provided this information as a favor.”

“…Oh. Yeah. Okay.” Gavin leaned back, rubbing at the fingerprints he left on the shiny counter. “That’s good. Good for him. March of progress and all that shit, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Reed.”

“Okay. Uh. Hey, can I leave this for him?”

She cocked her head, just a little. “Mr. Kamski’s office is not accepting unsolicited packages as this time. His office can be reached by visiting our—”

“Yeah, yeah, I got the message. Hey, uh, thanks for checking.”

He found a car waiting outside when he went home. That lady from the newspaper was hovering by his front door, and though she didn’t have a tape recorder visible she did chase his car into his private parking space.

“Mr. Reed!” She gave him a big grin. “I was hoping to get an interview with you and Mr. Manfred—”

“He’s not here,” Gavin muttered.

“No problem, I’m happy to make an appointment if—”

“He works for CyberLife now. Good luck getting an appointment there. Turns out he was an android, though, so. Whatever love story you wrote about us was a lie.” He turned back to her. “You know, I thought I was looking out for him? It’s like, I know Eli, and what does he know about humans? Some reclusive old man, and me. Those are his only two datapoints. You’d think he’d be a little more discerning.” He waved his hands. “But apparently, trying to stop the best guy you’ve ever met from getting in a bad situation is ‘paranoid’ and ‘amoral’! That bastard got me all turned around and—and—and now I can’t tell if I’m all fucked up ‘cause he’s gone, or ‘cause he’s…you know… probably better off without me.”

The woman blinked at him, and he blinked back. Gavin considered the very real possibility that he no longer knew how to interact with humanity. Or he just really needed to talk to Tina. He told her “No comment,” went inside, and cried his stupid eyes out into Markus’ side of the bed.

When he woke up he discovered that his Furbies did not, in fact, band together to build him a new Markus in the night. Little jerks.

He shaved, though, and cleaned up the books by the photo booth, and reorganized the Furbies in the pet shop. He even opened for a couple of hours. He found the second photo strip in the pocket of his corduroy jacket, and gave it to Atraxas to look after.

This was a lot, and so to celebrate he decided to go to the bar and get shit-faced. Also, he didn’t have any more booze at home. The TV over the bar flashed a picture of Elijah Kamski, teasing some ‘big announcement’ later this week. Markus was nowhere to be seen, but of course Eli would want to get his audience a little hyped up first. He imagined Markus stepping out on some stage wearing more Rabanne, his eyes matching, his legs the right length, telling the world that androids were no longer their slaves.

“Hope you’re happy, Marvin.” He meant it like an insult but it came out sad and soft. Proud, in a stupidly depressed way. That fuckin’ android was gonna be stuck inside him forever it seemed, like a scratch on a record.

He was ordering his third round of doubles when he heard a squeak from the patio.

Fucking shit. Same fence, same drunks, different android. This one was shorter. Newer. So—younger?

God damn it.

“…How much do you want for that android out there?”

“You know how hard it is to find a cheap android for the patio these days?” the bartender complained.

Gavin emptied his newly-filled wallet onto the counter.

“…Damn, I should get into the android sales business!”

Gavin pretended he didn’t hear this and went to go take the android down from the fence, having already spent all his cash on androids and leaving none for more drinks or food. This one didn’t run. She limped after him, dozens of cocktail umbrellas stuck in her arms and oblivious to the thirium trickling down them.

“Get out of here,” he told her when they got to the car. He glanced back at the bar and added, in a whisper, “You’re free or whatever, okay?”

She just blinked at him.

He sighed. “Fine. Get in.”

“Your blood alcohol level is too high to drive,” she said.

“No one asked you, honey!” They just sat in the car while the drinks churned in Gavin’s stomach. Creep. He got out and walked around his car a little just to pass the time. The took the umbrella picks carefully out of the android’s arms. He almost reached for his pocket text Tina, but the bits of his broken phone teased him from the crate of electronic recycling in the back seat.

He glanced at the back of the android, then opened the back door and fished out the pieces of his phone. It only took a few minutes to cobble the pieces of the phone together enough to plug it in, really: first to the car charger, then to the android’s access port. He didn’t know what he expected to find in her code, and gave himself glass slivers in his fingertips just for looking.

He paused, then looked in his cache.

Markus’ serial number was still in there, just like he thought. Gavin heart thudded (in relation to his piss-poor diet mind you, not any stupid emotions) before he scrolled past it. It had his code readout from a full 24 hours before Gavin deleted the app, and he found the error report from when Markus disobeyed him pretty quickly, then the actual code stream from that exact moment. He studied it a few minutes, then went over to the passenger side and made a few modifications to her cortex with his multitool. Gavin pretended not to care when he caught people staring. He carefully copied and pasted the error into her code, turned off her net access, then did a reboot. Markus’ code, and Gavin’s repairs.

He waited until she blinked back to life before he slowly raised his hands.

“It’s okay, chica, you’re—"

She whipped around and elbowed him in the solar plexus.

He landed on his tailbone, the breath knocked out of him. She just jumped over him and when he finally managed to see through his watering eyes, she was gone. He sat up from the asphalt, wondering if he might throw up.

If this was what healing and closure looked like, it frankly sucked ass.

“Well, that was hot,” someone said. “Girl power and shit.”

Gavin rubbed his eyes. “Tina?”

“I think you fell in some gum,” Tina laughed, then reached down to help him up.

“Tina.” Gavin’s eyes were only watering from having his ass handed to him by an android, of course. “Wh-what’re you doing here?”

“Uh, you haven’t been answering your phone? I thought you died and your Furbies were eating your corpse.” She gave his arm a little squeeze. “That bad, huh?”

Gavin decided that he could both resent her guessing why he ghosted her and appreciate that she came to find him equally. “He left. With Eli, of all the fucking—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“He’s gonna become the next big thing for CyberLife, probably their new CEO of Deviant Affairs. Better off without me, I don’t care what you say.” He rubbed his eyes. “What, did Eli announce it already?”

“Ha! Nope.”

“Then how the fuck do you know? Did he tell the tabloids about--” Gavin’s mind became a collage of spinning headlines detailing his torrid and disgusting android love affair and started to pull his hair out.

“No dude, quit helping your receding hairline!" Tina knocked his hand away. “It's a long story. Don’t worry, we’re gonna get him out.”

“…Get him out?”

“Yep. There’s someone you need to meet.”

Chapter Text

Gavin’s squint got worse over the course of the next half hour. When introductions and explanations were finally over, he just stared across Tina’s kitchen table at his three dinner-mates.

Well, four. Hank’s dumb pet was standing by the door like he expected secret agents to come tumbling in any minute. Oh, and Sumo was over there, too. Gavin spread his fingers on the table on either side of his half-eaten country-fried steak (Tina’s deliciously unhealthy cooking did nothing to make him feel better). “Let me get this straight. You didn’t hear from me, so you spilled the secret about me and my robot boyfriend to Hank. They guy who hates androids more than I do.” He scrunched his eyes shut. “Did.”

“Yeah,” Tina said. “It was after the party, who cares?”

“I wasn’t gonna call the guys in white coats to come after you with the padded van,” Hank said. “She knew I’d be worried about you.”

“Right.” Gavin pointed. “Except, you don’t actually hate androids. You’re saying that your little tin can over there made you change your fuckin’ mind. After you both got me fired and everything.”

“How do you think he figured out android lives are important?” Connor said, with a smart ass little smirk that made Gavin want to pull a gun on him all over again.

Hank just shrugged. “Hey, I’m old, not calcified. I can change my mind if I want.”

“And that’s how you met…” Gavin pointed at the woman sitting beside Hank. “…Pumpkin?”

“Rose,” Rose laughed. “Pumpkin Patch is the newspaper.”

Tina spun her hands. “…Which it turns out is not just a fluffy little free newspaper, but full of secret codes to undermine android oppression and help get deviant androids to safety,” Tina spun her hands. “Let’s speed things up.”

“I recognized Markus as soon as I saw your dance video,” Rose explained. “I sent a lot of androids to him that wanted to help his revolution before it failed….” She whispered to Tina. “He really doesn’t watch the news, does he?”

“Hey, I saw Kamski on TV!” Gavin protested. “At the bar. He’s gonna announce something big. He said Markus was helping him with, uh, something. It’s gotta be android liberation, right? I’m not in the way, so….” His stomach twisted but, well, he’d just have to get used to that as far as Markus was concerned. He glared at his audience. “What? Aren’t you all android lovers now? You should be happy!”

“Full disclosure, I’m still on the fence,” Tina whispered, but Hank and Rose shared one of those old-people looks about the kids these days.

“Um,” Rose winced. “You don’t have any doubts about Kamski’s intentions?”

Gavin stirred his food around. “Maybe, but Eli said—“

“You wanna guess who’s been buying up every old android in the city?” Hank interrupted.

“No. Why the fuck would I know?” Gavin squinted again. “CyberLife? Seriously? What do they want with a bunch of…” He blinked into the middle distance. “Wait…”

“Got there in the end,” Hank muttered.

“Screw you, this month has been fuckin’ trying.” He wiped his nose and locked eyes with Tina’s Furby which she held in the crook of her arm for emotional support. “You… you think they threw him away?”

“FAHHHK!” the Furby said. His thoughts exactly.

“I don’t think so,” Rose said. “I bet he’s in their vault.”

“CyberLife has a vault?” Okay maybe he said it a little too loud. “Wh-wh-what, are you just guessing?”

“All deviants have valuable code. Markus’ code especially. I’d hoped someday I could get someone into CyberLife's vault, and now, with two cops…”

“…Wait a second, are you—“

“I knew you liked me for a reason!” Hank said with a goofy grin, which you know, gross, old people love, Gavin would have to unpack that later—

“And someone who clearly knows his way around android programming,” Rose added, with a smile at the slowly freaking-out Gavin. “Is it true you turned a new-model android deviant with a multi-tool?”

Gavin stammered, feeling like someone slipped him a psychoactive. “Yeah, but it wasn’t just me, it's hardware stuff and code. Markus broke through first.”

“CyberLife might have already developed a security patch, then.” Rose turned to Hank as if Gavin was a mere accessory. “They can’t make a hardware change to all every android without a recall. We need to get Markus and as many other deviants out to work on this, and fast.”

“Hey, hey, time out!” Gavin waved his hands. “We can’t break in to CyberLife! That place is a fortress!”

“Actually....” Rose reached into an enormous purse and pulled out what looked on the surface like a scrapbooking kit or a mother’s very eventful family planner. You know, if not for the contraband inside. “I have it all planned out!...”

*

Gavin held his nose and closed his eyes for the next bit. It had been better thinking Markus left him to follow his dreams. Worse than the whole Ocean’s Eleven break-in plans that offended his former cop sensibilities, was the simple fact that no one knew what condition Markus would be in when they found him. He might just be a file on a computer. He could have been reset or recycled. It was like that time he had to bid on a really sketchy website for a really rare video game for way too much money. You just hit ‘bid’ and hoped.

Hank and Tina covered most of the entry stuff, occasionally asking Gavin for facts about Eli to get through security doors, or using Gavin as a distraction while they deactivated guard androids. Then they hustled him to the next hallway, the next locked door.

He could have just written down what he did to the android in the parking lot to free her. Let someone else risk their lives, right? That was probably why his heart was pounding. It wasn’t like Markus wanted to stay with him, this didn’t change anything like that. They had their fight, he cried his tears. That was over. He was only here because that damn android infected his brain with anthropomorphic sentiments that would probably lead to the downfall of the human race.

Humans probably deserved it, but still.

Tina fiddled with a computer terminal while Hank stood guard. Gavin helped out by making his whole body into a goddamn fist. “You got it?”

“Shut up!” Tina hissed.

Gavin shut up, which meant he turned his attention back to Markus. He hung from clamps and cables against a brightly-lit wall, close enough to touch. Markus’ three friends dangled nearby, but none of the androids moved. Markus had all his unoriginal parts removed, right down to the pump regulator and Markus’ emotional blue eye. Gavin realized, after staring in rapturous angst for several minutes, that Markus actually looked like shit. Gavin didn’t understand love until that moment.

He gave Markus’ unresponsive hand a squeeze and swallowed a lump in his throat. “Just hurry up, alright?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tina snapped. “Why don’t you just wave your magic multi-tool and fix every—?”

She stopped short as the computer screen dissolved into some kind of 8-bit video game interface. Gavin shoved his way into the office chair just as a beam of light scanned his face. A moment later a hovering avatar of himself in miniature hovered on the screen in stand-by mode.

“Aww,” Tina said. “Cute rat man! What is this?”

“It’s a simulation. Eli used to make these all the time.” Fucking Eli. As he watched the setting of the game changed, characters zipping around the screen like a movie on fast forward. He watched a tiny Markus avatar lead a revolution in a miniature Detroit, and fail. He about had a heart attack when Markus’ avatar was shot and the world collapsed into blue screen of death. But then the clock just reset. Pixels resolved into a junkyard, Markus emerging with difficulty from the piles of what appeared to be—dead androids?...

“Jesus,” Gavin muttered. He forced himself to look away, and clicked around until he was able to view what was apparently the stats page for ‘Team 001’. Health, skills…each of the four androids had a little bead of golden light that traveled in time with the game clock along the branches of a decision tree. Some paths were highlighted, the outcomes already predetermined and known. Markus’s avatar chose a new path, and the tree grew and split.

“Oh, go there!” Tina pointed to the corner of the screen. “You can unlock Markus’ game with the serial number!”

Gavin, hating himself, found the number from his phone and copied it in. A little digital lock popped open and Gavin turned to the real Markus hanging on the wall.

Markus didn’t move. The game kept going.

“Hey, Freckles. Wake up.” Gavin shook his shoulder, then reached for one of the connector cords. Of course, he took away Markus’ LED so no telling if disconnecting would corrupt every file in his drives.

He pushed back over to the computer. “He’s still transferring data.”

“Can’t you tell him to stop?” Tina asked.

Gavin tried a few buttons. As he did, his little Gavin avatar finally dropped into play.

“Uh. Okay.” His fingers hovered over the keyboard before he composed a message for the approaching avatars. “Just like an adventure game, right?”

“More like a dating sim,” Tina said. “Don’t worry, you’ve gotten a lot of practice with that the last few weeks!”

Gavin glared at her, and Tina raised her hands. “Sorry, sorry! Still getting used to the whole ‘dating a robot’ thing.”

“You and be both,” Gavin muttered, squinting at the screen like it was his detective’s exam. As he moved to hit send, the chat box locked. Avatars of Markus’ friends were already interacting with him and it did not appear friendly, and the chat was blowing up.

>JOSH: I’ll hold, you punch.

>SIMON: No, stop… oh, never mind, go for it.

>NORTH: Simon’s seal of approval!

>JOSH: Huh, maybe catharsis is healthy!

>NORTH: DIE DIE DIE

“Oh, come on!” Gavin muttered, outside of the game, as his avatar instantly drained of life. The plot continued on without him. Markus died early and North took over. She went out in a blaze of glory. The simulation started over again.

“Well, fuck that,” Tina said.

Gavin tapped at the keyboard.  

This time he maneuvered his avatar around Markus’ friends like Pac-Man avoiding ghosts. He clicked over to the chat and cut to the chase a lot faster, though he noticed the clock slowed to accommodate his sluggish human reflexes.

>ADMIN: Freckles I unlocked your simulation so shut it down on your ned

>ADMIN: End

>ADMIN: are you okay?

Their avatars hovered within a couple squares of each other, pulsing in place like a blinking cursor. Gavin felt himself blush for some stupid reason.

>MARKUS: Gavin?

Gavin checked his username.

>ADMIN: Fuck sorry yes idk it autogenerated

>ADMIN: just hit shut down we’ll get out of here

>MARKUS: I don’t know you

>MARKUS: You’re not real

“Sounds familiar,” Tina said.

“You’re not helping,” Gavin snapped.

>ADMIN: I’m real, man, you’re in a simulation. Can you shut it down from your end? I can’t get you out from here

>MARKUS: I’m in the middle of a revolution at the moment. I don’t need you to rescue me.

The chat box locked again. Gavin’s avatar dropped to zero health in a second. Markus’ avatar put away a gently smoking gun. Gavin hissed and, while the next simulation loaded up, he studied the decision tree more closely. There were so many decisions being made, a careful dance between death and failure. Fight Back. Steal The Truck. Smash Window. Kiss North. Fight Back. Stand Ground. Run. Gavin broke in again and didn’t bother with preamble.

>ADMIN: It’s just letting you pretend. Like what we had. Maybe it is real to you, like that was real to me. But it’s still fake. There’s real people who need your help.

>MARKUS: Real people do what they want and don’t care about each other. I didn’t make a difference for anyone. I couldn’t even change you. You’re selfish. You only care about what other people think of you.

>ADMIN: Yeah, and you’re better than me. You do the right thing even when no one’s watching. You’ll try to help anyone, even dickheads like me.

The decision tree branched: Take Detonator. Detonate Bomb. Watch Detroit Burn.

>ADMIN: Please wake up. I’ll do what the fuck ever you want. I still owe you from before, remember?

>ADMIN: Anything

>ADMIN: We can draw on Eli's face

>ADMIN: I'll help you with a real revolution okay?

>ADMIN: Come on, please

>MARKUS: This is mine, even if it's fake. I can finally win. Why won’t you just let me have this?

>ADMIN: Because you’re not fake, dumbass!

>ADMIN: Wake up!

“Come on,” Gavin growled. “Come on!”

Tina touched his shoulder. “Gavin, maybe it’s not—”

“I’m not going to be like that other old man that let him go!” Gavin shouted. “Now, wake up, Maria!” Then, because he was an asshole that loved his android very much, he poked Markus right in his sensitive solar plexus, hard. The android came to life with a gasp. Gavin fell out of the chair clambering over to him.

“Hey, hey, man, you’re okay.”

“I know,” Markus panted. He turned a tired glare on Gavin. “I could punch you in the face right now.”

It was a defense mechanism. Gavin showed he didn’t mind by pulling the android into a crushing hug. Tina tactfully turned away and scrolled her socials.

“You came looking for me,” Markus whispered. His fingers clung to Gavin’s shirt.

“You don’t have to sound so fucking depressed about it,” Gavin said, thickly.

Markus sniffed. “At least you’re not in crocs.”

…Gavin’s belated holiday feelings of good will toward men and wishes for peace on Earth evaporated. He started pulling out cords. “Come on. Can I carry you?”

“Providing the illusion of choice is not choice,” Tina observed.

Markus sighed. “Yes, please, carry me.”

Gavin grinned and pulled Markus into his arms, just as the door exploded open and an android—probably some new guard model not even on the market yet—crashed into the lab like a freight train. Tina screamed and threw her phone at it, showing quicker wits than Gavin, who only knew he couldn’t dodge in time with Markus in his arms. But, you know, like hell he was going to do anything about that. At least he died doing what he loved: Extreme Antiquing.

The impact never came. Gavin opened his eyes to see Markus glaring over his shoulder at the android. The guard stopped in his tracks, blinking, waking up for the first time, just from a look. Gavin laughed and debated whether to tell Markus that was some freaky shit or that he was turned on as hell.

He didn’t get a chance to say either.  Of course the first guard hadn’t come alone. The rattle of gunfire filled the room just after Markus grabbed a couple of cords on the wall and used them to twist himself between Gavin’s soft squishy body, and the bullets.

More gunfire. Hank swearing. The recently-freed android sprinting after his companion. Tina  grabbing his arm. Gavin barely noticed any of it as Markus went stiff and still as a doll in his arms.

“Markus!”

Chapter Text

“You almost done?” North asked.

Gavin rubbed his face. He was getting too old to stay up til three in the morning. “Sorry, I thought this guy was a friend of yours.”

“Just hurry up,” she snapped. Gavin gave a mock bow and got back to work.

Frankly, all this just confirmed in his mind that android engineering was cursed knowledge.The knew the moment he’d pulled off Markus’ chest plating in the back of Rose’s shuddering minivan, sending his carefully-printed little chest clips snapping off into the dark. Seeing the blue blood surrounding Markus’ mechanisms by the light of Tina’s phone. Realizing he’d have to pull a bullet out of Markus’ thirium pump and plug the hole with his finger. He’d closed his eyes and focused on how he felt when he found that old super-rare Pikachu pedometer in a box of donated junk. Not, ‘This is broken,’ but rather, ‘I can fix this.’ He’d wiped his nose and fixed it. Now, they were back in Gavin’s workshop, safe, and Gavin had the luxury of hating once again. He hated how easily Markus’ synthskin smoothed over the bullet holes in the chassis. He hated that he saw similar little round holes in Markus when they first met, and didn’t even realize. Markus should’ve rattled with bullets. He kept finding more.

North gave Gavin a wary side-eye. “So—You really broke into CyberLife just to rescue him?”

“Yeah.” Gavin sighed and removed his hands from where they were buried in Markus’ plastic guts. “He’s important to me, alright?”

“For what?”

“For…” He looked at Markus’ sleeping face and felt a stained glass window inside him shatter. “For nothing.”

“That’s code for ‘I’m in love.’” Tina sauntered over and leaned against the table, watching too close as Gavin got back to work, as was her usual custom. North rolled her eyes and stalked off to rejoin the other androids hanging out on his sofa. With the new-model guard that Markus turned deviant, it soon became a fight for couch space.

“How would you know, huh?” Gavin asked. “I’ve never been in love.”

“You think I can’t tell?” Tina squinted at him. “So—You’re really into him? You kissed and everything?”

“…I dunno. Not everything. Does that matter?”

“I mean—how does everything even work with an android?...”

“I don’t know!—"

“I think Gavin might be trying to concentrate.” Rose cut in, gently. “I bet North would be happy to explain things.” She held up a hand and added behind it in a stage whisper, “And you can ask her to stop stealing Gavin’s video games.”

“Dude!—” Gavin complained but Tina put her hands on his shoulders.

“I’ll make sure she only takes the ones he’s platinumed.” She skipped off, probably to aide and abet. Gavin sighed and tried to finish up. “Thanks,” he muttered at Rose.

“You look pretty worn out,” she said, which was more mothering than Gavin got from anyone other than Tina. She closed up her tablet. “I just finished wiping his serial number from his system. It won’t matter who has it now.”

“Thank fuck.” Gavin eased the casing back into place, pried it out, and re-seated it back properly so the seams didn’t show. He wiped his hands as Markus’ synthskin slowly spread over it.

“You’re meticulous,” Rose said.

Gavin shrugged as he glared at the synthskin for any sign of glitch. “Just want it done right.” He rubbed a little nick in Markus’ casing from prying it off in the first few moments of getting Markus into the van. Stupid, he should have been paying attention. But the synthskin settled over it just fine. He glared at Rose. “Don’t you start asking if I love him, too.”

“Oh, I don’t need to.” She winked. “I’ll start getting everything arranged. We’ll be back before six, alright?”

Gavin nodded, and Rose left to enact step number five hundred and sixty-two in her binder of master escape plans. Gavin scooped Markus off the table and, in lieu of any other place to put the android, got him settled on his side of the bed. He didn’t have to hunt for Markus’ LED to press it this time.

“Don’t try to move,” he said, as Markus blinked his remaining eye a couple of times. “You do too much without a regulator and you’ll pass out.” Not to mention that all the work he’d done on Markus’ cortex meant he was probably high out of his mind. “You’re getting your part replacements in the morning, alright?”

Markus blinked again, like maybe he only heard half of that and understood a quarter of it. God, he was an adorable drunk. “You made it,” he said, his voice painfully soft.

Gavin blushed. Not the words he was expecting. “Y-yeah. I’m fine. That big head of yours caught all the bullets for me.” He stammered to add, “North, Simon and Josh are fine, too,” because that had to be what Markus was really worried about.

Markus was too out of it to notice that he didn’t even mess up their names. “You’re…not hurt?”

“Fucked up my back bending over to tie my shoe if that counts?” He fucked up his back carrying Markus but the android would never know.

Markus grinned attractively, snorting unattractively. He looked around, and his hand came up to cover the missing eye. His skin glowed pink like a sunset. “I’m in your bed.”

“Don’t get too excited, I didn’t change the sheets for you this time.”

“I can tell.” Markus sighed, then his eyebrows pinched, glaring at something behind his remaining eyelid. “I really messed up.”

“Whatever.”

Markus remained pinched.

Gavin swallowed a lump in his throat. “Hey, you wanna talk about fuck-ups, it took me until almost Valentines to figure everything out. Uh. Sucks that it didn’t work out how you hoped. Eli’s a bastard. You like, deserve better and all that shit.”

Markus did not seem to notice the flaming pile of babbling Furbies that he’d become. “I’m so sorry I hurt you,” the android said. “And left you.”

Gavin blinked a couple of times. There was some—his eye itched. He took Markus’ free hand and gave it a squeeze like a handshake. “It’s all good, man. You’re good.”

Markus managed another smile and finally relaxed like he was reclining on a beach in Maui. Gavin had to look at a stain on the wall while he cleared his throat. “And hey—just for the record, I’m sorry too, for like, keeping you from going to that stupid parade and, the serial number thing, and being a general dick—and everything?” He sniffed. “You know, just clear the air.”

Gavin sat there, his mortifyingly-sweaty hand around Markus’, going through some simulations of his own as to how Markus would react. Some shameless little part of him wondered if Markus would say, ‘I hope you’re not sorry for everything.’

“But being a general dick is one of your best features,” Markus said, graphically portraying how dopey he really was at the moment. Gavin laughed anyway. He wasn’t expecting forgiveness.

“Anyway, the lady that broke you out got rid of your serial number,” he said. “So no one can use it on you. I figure with my workaround and your code you can free a lot of androids, get ‘em off the grid, right? I dunno if this got covered in your simulations. Uh. If so you’re gonna need a better plan.”

“I’ll take that into consider…consideration.”

“Yeah, I mean I’m not gonna tell you how to run your android uprising or whatever. You should take a few days though. Let your code settle. Your friends are gonna get you to some secret hideout here in a bit.” He realized he was petting Markus’ hand with his fingertips. Trying to be soothing, maybe. Given how torn up they were from picking at plastic in Markus’ guts that probably didn’t feel so nice.

He put his hands back in his lap just as Markus said, “That’s nice. Keep going.”

…So, Gavin kept going. Markus couldn’t be held responsible for what he said or did right now.

“What about you?” Markus’ voice was almost a whisper.

“What about me?”

“Aren’t you in trouble?”

Gavin huffed. “Eli doubts my ability to use a smartphone. He’s not gonna suspect me. Rose is taking care of any evidence, it’s like she does this for a living. So long as you aren’t around, I’ll be fine.”

“Why aren’t you coming with me?”

Gavin laughed. “It’s like all androids, man.”

“You could come.”

“Yeah, and be your little pet this time?”

“I can come up with a few simulations about how well that would go.”

Gavin grinned so big his cheeks hurt. “Yeah, I better get outta your hair.” He scrubbed Markus’ wonderful hair. “Come on, I didn’t mess you up that bad. Did I?” that last bit sounded painfully fragile.  He hoped he did not mess Markus up that badly.

Markus shook his head, and they sat for a second in silence as Markus digested this information, or whatever the android equivalent was. Processed? Collated?

“I’m going to come back,” Markus explained. “As soon as I can. To thank—”

“Oh, now I know you’re high off your ass.” Gavin stood and patted Markus’ shoulder. “Get some rest.”

“Gavin, I’m allowed to—”

“Seriously, don’t fucking thank me!”

“Why not? Where are you going?”

“I dunno—sleep or something?”

“I’m in your bed. Put your feet up. Stay a while.”

“In your wet dreams, Freckles.”

Markus rolled his eye but sighed and gave up, which made Gavin feel a little bit less like he wanted to carve his own heart out. He tucked the android in, then went and got him Atraxas to cuddle.

“Stay,” Markus said. “Please.”

Gavin froze, his hands fisted on the blankets. He stayed strong for several impressive seconds. Then he climbed up on the bed. “If you ask for a kiss goodnight, I’ll start removing more parts.”

Markus giggled, buried in the pile of blankets. Gavin patted the pile twice (maybe he squeezed) before he settled himself against the headboard and dozed.

*

The androids were out of there two hours later on the dot. They loaded Markus onto the van without much more of a goodbye, thank God. Gavin sent him on his way with a bulging duffle of books, extra blankets, multitools, his library card clutched in Atraxas’ beak—and not even a backward glance. Markus insisted on giving something back like some kind of demented Gift of the Magi, though it was just the holographic dog-tags. Wasn’t like he had much else to give. Gavin waited until the van doors shut before he strung them on the same chain as his little robot pendant he already wore.

Shit, he forgot about the strip of pictures he’d tucked into Atraxas’ fur. He spun but the van was already gone. Oh, well. Atraxas would probably end up back with him anyway, like a cat that had different ideas about who really got it in the divorce. He sat down on the cold doorstep and squeezed the dog-tags in his fist.

Tina plunked down beside him. “Hi.”

“Yo.”

"That North android is pretty cool. I let her borrow your Batman games. She said maybe we could play sometime."

Gavin nodded. They sat together a while, watching the sky turn blue.

“You know, I may not get it,” she said, to no one in particular. “But I… I get it.” She nudged him. “Anyway, I was thinking I’d go for a bagel, or something. You want anything?”

Oh, Gavin wanted things. “I’m good.”

Tina continued to watch him. “You want a mimosa, hold the juice?”

He shook his head.

“...You want a hug?”

He nodded.

“Disgusting.” But she leaned toward him and he sank into the shoulder of her puffy coat.

Chapter Text

The bell above the door at Reeds Records and Collectibles buzzed.

“We’re out of singing Furbies,” Gavin said. He did not look up from his newspaper.

“Don’t tell me that’s a real thing people spend money on?”

Gavin spared a glance up to see Eli in the doorway, looking sleek and anachronistic between a stack of records and some fiber-optic lights.

“Yep.” Gavin popped the P at the end. “Do you want me to put you on the wait list?”

“Aha, no, thank you.” Eli looked around the shop like he was visiting the back end of a dump. Gavin went back to his newspaper.

“I…thought you’d be pleased to see me,” Eli said, after a second. Almost confused. “I’ve never been to your shop before.”

“Yeah, took you long enough.”

“…With all the hype, I expected it to be cleaner. You really could have made this place into something, you know.”

“It is something. This.” Gavin turned the page of his newspaper.

“I see you’ve branched out into selling androids.”

Gavin’s gaze flicked up. “Androids?...”

North, lounging in a La-Z-boy with her feet kicked up, said, “Oh, I just have that kind of face.”

Eli smirked. “You really except me to—"

“Oh, if I had a nickel for every time someone said I looked like an android!” Josh said, stepping out suddenly from the photo booth.

“Androids are pretty generic,” Simon added as he popped up from behind the counter. “I bet they look like a lot of people.”

Gavin grinned at his cousin. “You gonna buy something or what?”

Eli smoothed his hair, but managed to simply ignore the androids for now. “I…just wanted to remind you that those videos you’re posting are illegal.”

“Videos?” Gavin cocked his head. “Me?”

“CyberLife terms and conditions clearly state that android code and parts are proprietary. Those repair videos you keep posting are completely non-compliant with our terms and conditions.”

“Dude, you got the wrong guy. I don’t make videos, I sell junk.”

“I saw you demonstrate how to replace a thirium pump just yesterday!” Eli paused, then spun toward North. “On her, to be precise. I knew I recognized her—” his mouth twitched and he corrected, “It, from somewhere.”

“…Are you talking about that guy that goes around in a Kylo Ren helmet doing android repair and raiding androids out of landfills?” Gavin shrugged. “Surprised a big-shot like you knows who that is.”

“I know it’s you, Gavin.”

“Right. Cuz… no one else in the world has a Kylo Ren helmet or a camera phone.”

“And again, not an android,” North reminded him sweetly.

“Of course she’s a—look, I can scan her right now.” he fumbled with his phone. “It’s the latest feature on our app. You know, you can get in a lot of trouble for taking out an android’s LED—”

He pointed his phone at North, which did absolutely nothing. He frowned at the phone and waved it in front of her.

“If you keep doing that, I’m gonna take it,” she said mildly.

Eli glared at her until all of a sudden, his face went slack. “Wait. You’re the—” Eli scoffed a little, as he actually looked at the androids surrounding him.

“You’re Markus’ friends,” Eli breathed.

Gavin sighed and set down his paper to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Who?”

“Markus!” Eli rounded on him. “I knew it was you! I knew it! You broke into CyberLife and stole my property—”

“Damn, dude!” Gavin grinned. “You must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel for suspects. You stole him from me, remember?”

“And you stole him back, I see! I still have the paperwork that says he’s mine!”

Gavin spread his hands. “You found something here you can prove is yours, feel free.”

Eli disappeared into the shop and spent several minutes ransacking it, then trying to break in to the downstairs rooms. Three androids and one human listened to the carnage.

“Any volunteers to clean that up when he’s gone?” Gavin asked the world at large.

North, Josh, and Simon pretended interest in the décor.

Gavin sighed. “You guys are paying for the damages.”

“We did worse during our obstacle course,” Simon giggled.

“Yeah, about that, this place isn’t your personal gym!—“

“Do you realize how much he’d be worth?” Eli suddenly stood in the doorway of one of the shop rooms, hands flexing. He stalked forward and splayed his hands on the newspaper as he leaned over it, getting right up in Gavin’s face. “How famous you would be? In the right hands that android was worth more than you could ever dream! I’d be in your debt.”

“Yeah, guess you would.” He shrugged. “Honestly it was a long time ago, man—and used androids are pretty much worthless these days. I’m not sure what you really want here…”

“You want to outshine me, is that it? Unveil your amazing refurbished deviant? Pretend like you can just tell everyone what to think about artificial intelligence?”

“Man, I just sell iPods and shit,” Gavin said. “I could never be like you.”

Eli banged the counter. “You do not want to fuck with me, Gavin—!”

“That’s for damn sure, man.”

Eli’s lip curled and he stormed out.

“How was that for payback?” North asked, once he’d gone.

Gavin allowed himself a small smile. “He’ll probably be back later with some lawyers, but…you know. Not bad.” He cut his eyes at her. “Get your boots off the cushions!”

“Good to know those scan scramblers you installed are working. Hey, hey—make sure we’re all in your next repair video? He’ll go nuts!”

“Should I start dinner?” Simon offered.

“Simon, I told you I’m doing it!” Gavin complained.

“Yes, and I’m ignoring that,” Simon said cheerfully. “You make it too unhealthy.”

“I make it good! And Josh, you better stop using up all the photo booth film…”

“I was just reading.” Josh held up a paperback. “You really need to expand your library beyond manga.”

“Naruto is a classic!”

“War and Peace is a classic.”

“We can discuss how you’re wrong later.” Gavin tapped the newspaper, which was the latest issue of the Pumpkin Patch. “Got a pick-up for tonight.”

“Have fun,” North said, sprawling further.

“You know, once in a while you guys could offer to help? Just saying. These are your people I’m rescuing.”

“We watch the shop while you’re gone,” Josh said. “That’s helping!”

“And isn’t this all part of your redemption arc?” North already had her eyes closed for a nap. “Also, you got shot last time you picked up a stray android.”

“That was one time,” Gavin assured her. “Barely grazed me.”

“Yeah, pass. I’ll play with the Furbies, though!”

Gavin raked his hands down his face. “Androids are fucking useless.” He grabbed his keys. “Do not eat all the mac n’ cheese without me again, assholes! I’ll be back with our new friend soon.”

*

He drove to the address given in the newspaper. Thankfully this little rendezvous was cleared by Rose, otherwise he would have noped the hell out as soon as he saw the creepy abandoned building that looked ready to fall in a strong breeze.

A figure stepped out of the shadows. With the light from a hole in the roof, all they were was a silhouette.

“Gavin.” A deep, rumbly voice said. “You’re shorter than I expected.”

…Well at least this android didn’t need help turning deviant. “I’m just here to help, man. You need a place to stay?” The android said nothing. He added, “Something wrong with your voice simulator?”

Gavin took a step forward, and heard a small click.

“That’s far enough.”

…Gavin slowly raised his hands. Fucking North, she jinxed him. “I don’t want to hurt you, okay?”

“How am I supposed to trust you?”

“You can scan me. I don’t have anything on me. There’s thirium and stuff in the car if you want it.” A pause. “Look, Rose said you wanted help, I can go if you want—”

“No.” That voice was creepy, and sounded weirdly familiar. Were they wearing a Kylo Ren helmet too? Well, that’s probably not good. “Why are you helping us?”

“I dunno. Someone should. What else am I gonna do with my evenings?” He swallowed. “You wanna come to my place? We’re having mac n’ cheese, I dunno if you like that…”

There was a burst of static. Maybe a laugh? “Turn out your pockets.”

Gavin sighed, but did so. Gavin held up his multi-tool between two fingers.

“Turn around, slowly.”

Gavin did.

“Take off your shirt.”

“My what?”

“Now.”

Gavin squinted, but then shrugged and obeyed. Maybe they just wanted to see he wasn’t packing heat or something, and—

“Gavin!” the voice was almost offended. “You really take your top off for any android that comes your way? I thought you were shy.”

“I—What?” Gavin started, then yanked his shirt back down as the altered voice laughed. “You little shit!”

 The figure stepped forward, revealing a Kylo Ren helmet and then, when he took it off, Markus. Gavin snatched his helmet back.

“When did you steal this, huh?”

“When I heard Kamski might be stopping by,” Markus said, beaming. “I couldn’t resist.”

“You have a pretty sick and twisted idea of flirting, you know?” He maybe smiled. “It’s almost starting to grow on me.”

“I live in hope,” Markus replied. The android had no shame.

Gavin just rolled his eyes. “So, what have we got? Rose said there was a pick-up?”

“Not…that kind of pick-up.” Markus tugged on his backpack straps. “I just thought you could use a laugh. And a break.”

“Oh you, did, huh?” Gavin leaned in. “Karma’s a bitch, Freckles, that’s all I’m saying.”  He leaned in closer. “Damn, that new eye of yours is fucking insane!”

Markus covered it. “Insane?”

“Insane like good, numbnuts!” Gavin pulled his hand out of the way to admire it. “It’s like the same color as Atraxas’ fur. Very bitchin’.”

“I see you’ve been doing your eye exercises.”

“Yeah, it’s getting a little better, actually…” He realized they were still holding hands and let go. “Anyway, uh, Simon ruined a box of mac back at the shop, so I better get home before they eat all of—”

He stopped as Markus swung his bag off his shoulder. He expected Markus to pull out Atraxas, though the Furby was meant to be hanging out with Markus for another couple of weeks. His phone was filled with pictures of Atraxas chilling in parks, exploring derelict freighters, looking down from the tops of skyscrapers.

Markus just held up a bento box.

Gavin eyed him. “…You didn’t.”

Markus’ mouth pursed. “It’s my first attempt at sushi.”

“I freakin’ love sushi!”

A few minutes later they were settled on an exposed beam of the derelict warehouse’s roof, gobbling down a buffet of Japanese delights while they watched bits of a drive-in movie from a few blocks away. Godzilla rampaged across the distant screen like a tiny Tamagotchi.

“Hey, if you need to head out, it’s cool.”

“You wanna get rid of me?”

“No, just—you’re a busy guy.”

“So are you. I’ve been planning this for weeks.”

Gavin made a face at him. Markus just smiled and handed him a thermos of green tea. It tasted like fruits and spring.

“…You got too many talents,” Gavin informed him.

“So do you,” Markus said. “What’s this I hear about you fixing the mellotron?”

“Oh yeah—I think the higher registers should be better now. After your last jam session, some guy made another offer on it. I could have bought a whole new shop.”

“Gavin, you don’t have to keep it just for me.”

“Are you kidding? You make it sound like a million bucks. Even with inflation that’s like, two shops at least.” Gavin turned back to his food, only to find he’d eaten it all. He re-assembled the bento box and handed it over. “Thanks.”

Markus took it and held it in his lap. “It feels good to fulfill my programming’s original objectives.”

“You calling me an old man?” Gavin laughed. “Huh. It’s funny. I was kind of a shit cop but like, doing this, helping people? It’s what I missed.”

“We’re grateful for everything you do,” Markus said. His eyes flickered as they gave Gavin a once-over. “I’m so happy you’re in my life, Gavin.”

That was a very sappy thing to say, and paired with that eye-fuck… Wait, what did Markus mean about ‘not that kind of pick-up’?

Gavin laughed slowly. “Oh, no. No no no.”

He started to climb over Markus so he could get down from the roof. Markus caught him easily.

“Nope, we’re having this conversation.”

“I got shit to do, Mateo. You got shit to do—”

“Yes. This.” Gavin tried to squirm free but Markus’ grip around his middle was firm. “I’m trying to ask you out,” Markus whispered in his ear. “It’d be a shame to accidentally kill you in the process.”

Which was hot and fucked up and all the hotter for it being fucked up. Gavin sat back with a grunt. “Look, I don’t know what there is to talk about. We’re just friends!”

“How many male friends do you have?”

“Uh—!” Gavin scoffed. Then blinked. He scraped the bottom of the barrel and came up with, “Hank!”

“Hank’s a father figure. And I know for a fact that you can’t stand Josh and Simon.”

“North is just objectively cooler, I’m sorry I rank your friends!” He waved his hands. “Okay, okay, how many human friends do you have?”

“Rose! And, um… well, Hank…. Okay, fine, it’s beside the point.” Markus sighed through his nose. “You keep the most high-maintenance musical instrument ever created in pristine condition just so I can play it once in a while.”

“What of it? I don’t have a lot of friends but I take care of them!”

“Very true. It’s one of the many reasons I like you.” Markus cocked his head. “Do you like me?”

Gavin scratched the back of his neck. “Come on. You’re out of my league, remember?”

“Clearly, I never was, since I said things like that to you. You don’t have to earn forgiveness from me.”

“Hell yeah I do. I do!” He spread his hands. “Do you not remember what I did to you—?”

Markus caught a fidgety hand and held it between his own. “I remember. I forgave you a long time ago. And you said yourself you’re helping androids because it’s right. You don’t care what anyone thinks of you, not even Eli. I…I find that incredibly admirable.”

Gavin couldn’t help but brighten at that. Markus’ thumb stroking the back of his chapped hand made his stomach twist into a balloon animal. “Yeah. So what?”

“So, it’s alright to forgive yourself, too.”

 …Okay, fine, Gavin’s hang-ups with dating Markus were personal. He looked at Markus and felt like shit, sometimes. Other times he felt like he was Superman. Markus was a call to action in Gavin’s guts either way, to be the best version of himself. “It’s not that simple.”

“It’s not? I know how much you love yourself.” Gavin laughed but Markus’ eyes were serious, smoldering. “Why do you come running whenever I call, if you’re so ashamed?”

“Because—” Gavin’s eyes were wobbly, all shine-studded centers. He pushed his free hand through his hair. “Because life sucks less with you around, okay?” He shrugged. “Actually, you’re one of the best parts. Pretty sure you don’t—feel—like that. About me.”

“I told you I like the Benedicks of the world.”

“Come on, I’m more a Puck than anything.”

“I think you mean something else,” Markus said with a smile. “Or you’ve been reading more Shakespeare.”

“Hey, gotta do something to get on your level.”

“You’re more intelligent than you’ve ever given yourself credit for. You’re persistent. You’re honest. You consistently and independently work to better yourself. And you’re hot as hell. Explain to me how we aren’t on the same level.”

Gavin blinked. “You think I’m hot?”

Markus shrugged, and seemed very interested in the movie all of a sudden. They both focused on it for a while, though their hands remained linked in Gavin’s lap. Friends could do that, totally.

Friends did not quite so often slide their fingers under the hem of your shirt. A tingling rush encompassed Gavin’s nerves up to his hair roots. “Whoa!” He startled back, fishing Markus’ hand out. The fingertips were white plastic, skin retracted and rippling.

“Oh—Sorry—” Markus tried to pull away but Gavin caught him red-handed at something and didn’t let go.

“Trying to cop a feel, huh? What was that?” He scrubbed his stomach to get rid of the tingling.

“I was—it was just uh… trying to interface.”

“Look, I know I’m more intelligent than I give myself credit for, but that’s impossible to do with a human.”

“…You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”

“Nope!” He examined the pads of Markus’ fingertips in the dark. “What’d you want to interface for?”

“It’s just something androids do. Um. So, I can make you understand what I’m feeling.”

Gavin continued to play with Markus’ fingertips. “So just tell me.”

“You have a few years? I said you were intelligent, not smart.”

Gavin snorted, and elbowed Markus in the gut. Markus flicked his ear. Gavin started to push himself up to get higher ground but maybe they were intellectually matched because Markus got the same bright idea. Their jostling for position turned into rough-housing.  It was almost fair until Gavin introduced tickling into the mix, which was something he could dish out but absolutely not take. He shrieked and kicked and probably would have knocked them both off that stupid roof but Markus easily kept them both steady. He tortured Gavin a few more seconds before he pinned Gavin in an arm bar so perfect that Gavin got a little hard.

“Uncle! Uncle!” he yelped, flailing, knowing that Markus wouldn’t let him fall. He was still laughing when Markus leaned down and kissed him. It was long and slow and oxygen-deprived. Gavin had to catch his breath a second when it was over.

“That,” Markus said, “is how you make me feel.”

Gavin patted Markus’ big beefy synthetic shoulder with his free hand. “Lemme down.”

This time Markus let him. They climbed down together, Markus helping him the last few feet, then just standing there. Markus watched him while movie monsters roared in the distance.

“Well, uh, good date.” Gavin offered his fist to bump.

Markus put out a fist, but left it pressed against Gavin’s, their knuckles interlocked. He tilted their fists slowly one way, then the other. “You’ve never been on a real date, have you?”

“What? Dinner and a movie, right? You checked all the boxes.”

“Derivative. I could blow your mind.”

“Wouldn’t take much, I’m kind of a shut-in.” Gavin felt his neck getting all sweaty and let his hand drop.

Markus stepped forward and crowded him up against the wall, big beefy arm braced on the bricks behind Gavin’s head all kabedon-style. Whatever size of new legs Markus had gotten made him quite—formidable. Gavin got sweaty everywhere.

“How am I going to get rid of this…” He looked around as if searching for words. “…angst between us.”

Gavin stared up at him and whispered, “You’re doing a pretty good job.”

“I should have known. Humans never respond to negotiation.”

He led Gavin’s hand to his waist, then slid his hand up Gavin’s not unimpressive arm, as if he didn’t want to lose contact with Gavin’s skin for one second. Markus leaned in so close that Gavin could see the little nick he left in Markus’ casing. Markus could probably count his pores. Markus was a hot weight blocking out the spring chill, a giant rice frog fresh from the microwave, and Gavin felt safe, so safe, for once in his stupid life, like Markus had seen worse than him, like Markus was the secondhand find of the century, like he should put Markus behind glass.

“I don’t want to ruin what we got going,” Gavin mumbled.

“I don’t want to be just friends anymore,” Markus replied simply.

“We’re both busy being heroic or whatever—we’d never have time.”

“We’ll make time.”

“North would kill me.”

“North has had a hit out on you since December.”

“I’m, like, old!”

“I’m willing to explore that dynamic, and our other differences. I’m not asking you to marry me today.”

“...I don’t like that qualifier.” Markus’ big clay-brown hand cradled Gavin’s cheek, and his heart pounded in a way that probably wasn’t healthy. “I-I just ate a bunch of fish.”

Markus thumb scrubbed over the stubble on his chin. “Like you could get any more disgusting, babe.”

Babe. Gavin had never been called that, or any other pet name. Markus’ lips brushed his. “Do I even want to know where your mouth has been?”

Markus nuzzled him gently. “Don’t think about it too hard.” He felt Markus’ cooling fans kick into high gear as the android asked, softly, “May I take you on a date, please, Gavin?”

Gavin was floating away on clouds, the world dissolved into a 16-bit victory clip at the end of a video game. “Well. Far be it from me to keep you from your bliss.”

Markus’ cool-guy act disappeared. “You mean you’ll--?”

Gavin grabbed Markus by the front of his shirt and yanked him down into a dip, and a deep, slow kiss.

“Wow!” Markus breathed, all full of perfect android wonder and joy. Definitely worth it for that, straight up.

“Yeah.” Gavin did not straighten up. “…Yeah, I just fucked up my back.”

Markus giggled, then frowned. “Wait, really?”

“Ohhhh yeah.”

“Oh. Okay—You’re okay.” Markus carefully squirmed out of his arms and righted himself, gently palpating Gavin’s back while supporting his shoulder. “Oooh, you're right, it's pretty locked up.”

“No shit!”

“Aw, come here.”

Markus eased Gavin into his arms, Gavin groaning all the way until the former android-hater clung to Markus’ neck like a monkey.

“You need to stop lifting things with your back,” Markus told him.

“I don’t wanna hear any shit from you,” Gavin moaned.

“Mm. How does carrying you over the threshold of urgent care rank on the spectrum of dates?”

“…Eleven out of ten. Your arms are really nice.” Gavin grabbed Markus pec. “Ah! Fuck, it hurts!...”

“Is this a ploy to get to second base?”

“Just shut up and take me to the hospital!”