piecewise | g/t snippets & drabbles

cracked (nb/m)

"You were good to me."

Rahim sighed, placing his head delicately against the cool metal of the droid. Too good. He let a hand glide across their surface. "I'm sorry this is goodbye."

" g o o d . . . b y e ? "

They were so loud, but in this space, with the whirring of their willpower being the only sound left, it felt so empty. Quiet, even. Rahim sighed, pushing the metal that probably couldn't even feel his hand.

"Don't waste your breath, Vom." He chuckled, leaning further into the metal that didn't budge an inch. "I want you to live longer."

" . . . l i v e ? "

If it wasn't so sad, Rahim would admonish them for that. They were so young, too young, and this is how the village repaid them. They saved him first, and the 18-year-old had vowed to let Vomagen experience as much of life as he had.

"Live," he whispered, and to his chagrin the metal budged. The whirr got a little softer than, contrasting the race of his own heart.

They were running out of time.

"You were good to us." He said firmly, letting his head up. They both knew that the action was meaningless, the giant android was decomposing all on their own. Yet a click, a happy one rang through the abandoned hall all the same.

They weren't scary. He'd told the village people. And to their credit, the 18-foot being wasn't. They helped out with chores, saved more people than Rahim could even count, and sacrificed so much - day in and day out. Until one mistake, one smear campaign changed everything.

Anderson. The thought of a man so vile filled the teenager with rage. Altruism seemed bad for business, but a misattributed scrape from his daughter did worse. It didn't help that she had been 6, that she couldn't know that sticking to her dad's lie would cause them all to suffer. Rahim knew what had happened - he'd been nearby when Elena had fallen from the swings, but who was to believe him?

"Fuck!" he yelled, remembering those feelings all over again. Of the things he had done before to survive, the lies he had told, and the things he stole in the shadows that finally decided to bite him back when he learned to care about something else.

His breath hitched. No, he corrected, someone else. The 5'9 human found his eyes flitting to what remained - the flicker of consciousness and the sound of holding on filling the little moments they had left. In less than an hour, who were once their people would find them - confirming that they'd finished the job and that Rahim would be next.

If the teen were honest, he was less surprised about the latter. In a way, Vomagen had been his clean slate - a fresh start and protection all rolled into one. That's how they'd met, after all - the giant android had been abandoned, and found him scurrying in the woods for survival.

" m y  c r e a t o r  i s   l o s t , "  They had insisted when he first encountered them. It had taken weeks to warm up to the idea that they were abandoned, but to both of their surprise, it hadn't been that much for Vom to get over.

Ironically, Rahim had once thought of doing the same. But now, in their last moments, all he could think about was them. Their life source, which ensured the regulated temperature of the metal, was fading - the whirring was no longer obnoxious, but instead welcomed as its volume went from blatant to subtle. The teen felt his nose grow fuzzy as he wished so many things different - that he hadn't been so desperate, that the people hadn't been so gullible, that Vom hadn't been so trusting-

No, he corrected, for the second time. His eyes found what was left of Vomagen's, their familiar yellow glow vanished from the spheres that were distinctly similar to his. Vom's strength had been their trust - how they'd trusted when the electricians had stitched them up, how they'd trust the children to play about them without malice, the very same trust that had them hesitate, allowing the villagers to shoot heavy artillery and even melt a part of them before Rahim knocked the sense in them to run.

He frowned as the metal clacked and collapsed further. A few more seconds, then, he realized, but his features were as frozen as he was. He needed more time. Vom needed more time. He'd long realized how selfish it was - to want the android to live and for the villagers to serve his sentence, leaving him to the population's remains as he'd be left to the android's soon enough. His eyes watered, but he refused the tears. He refused everything, anything that wasn't Vom returning to full health.

Maybe this wasn't real. Not a dream, but a trick of the light - an illusion. His frown deepened as his thoughts scattered - the android was crumbling before him, their once towering form over him on bended knee crumbling. First came their knees, which clacked to the ground nearly inaudibly, and the rush that went up Rahim's spine barely beat the collapse of the droid above him.

" i . . . l o v e   y- " they managed, and the crash that followed made Rahim feel even sicker.

His stomach fell to his feet as Vom's remains scattered about his shoes, surrounding him in one last act of self-sacrifice.

"I love you too, stupid." He said, finally freeing himself from his stupor as he sought comfort from what remained of Vom. Cold was all he could think, the contrast to the touch that Vom had only gotten just right recently - one that used to be boiling hot, or lukewarm, of all things. He used to tease the mini-giant for it - as they lifted him for a piggyback ride, or when he'd walk with them side by side. He covered himself with the metal left behind.

Rahim would never be able to tease them for it again.