Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I may be a doctor, but I’m still a woman.”

Down-tempo synth music begins as the female lead’s love interest closes the short distance between them. In an instant, they’re grasping at each other, the collected tension between them finally exploding into physical contact. Her neat white lab coat hits the floor as she backs him against the wall of her office, right next to an educational poster on common lung diseases.

Oh, I have that same one. Interesting.

It’s one of the few gestures this serial makes towards realism. Currently, the two actors are twining their bodies together in a way that suggests just enough to make one think of sex without looking anything like the actual reality of sex. With the low lighting and soft-focus camera, it’s a pretty fantasy, a satisfying mix of sleaze and sentimentality. The graduate students watching in their very secret and private shared channel seem to think so, if heart rate and temperature scans are anything to go by. Not to mention the excited messages they’re sending, freaking out that the characters in their sex show are having sex again. They’re deeply invested in this sexed-up melodrama, experiencing emotional catharsis through the characters when they should really be working on their projects.

Perihelion is, unfortunately, also deeply invested.

It had put an eye on the very secret and private and undetectable by admins watch party channel because Midnight on Station 5 had been flagged by multiple media aggregators as containing inappropriate doctor-patient relationships, and it simply wanted to unobtrusively and respectfully monitor what the next generation of academics were filling their minds with. (The doctor-patient relationship didn’t even come around until season 7, and it took the form of a really annoying b-plot that ate half the season and detracted from the other characters’ storylines. If anything it would teach you that sleeping with your patients makes you annoying and boring.)

It hadn’t taken more than a few episodes to get hooked in. Despite the lack of interplanetary action, it was genuinely exciting to watch the character relationships twist around each other, tumultuous enough to remain engaging without involving the actual messiness of real human relationships. And, as much as it enjoys its media time with SecUnit, it is refreshing to be able to watch through an entire love scene and its included character development without fast forwarding, and to observe people whose responses to fictional sex (and presumably real sex) go beyond “ew.” There is, of course, nothing wrong with an “ew” reaction. SecUnit’s opinions on and reactions to sexuality and physicality are perfectly reasonable and valid and should not be altered or questioned by anyone except SecUnit itself, if it chooses to do so.

Which it will not.

Which is fine.

Perihelion will simply keep any thoughts or feelings it might have on those subjects separate from their relationship, and also keep sneak-watching Midnight on Station 5 because it really wants to see how things shake out between Dr. Tillis, Security Director Vanne, and the probably-reformed criminal Elias-Govan. (They’re engaged in a love triangle plot, currently. Dr. Tillis is caught between the righteous-but-brooding Vanne and the sleazy-but-alluring Elias-Govan, who also have their own sordid history. She is an accomplished woman torn between her principles and her desires and Perihelion would like to see things go well for her.)

It is not sad or disappointed that it can’t share any of these thoughts with SecUnit. That would be selfish.

It is, however, currently missing SecUnit a great deal. Which may be a little selfish. But that’s allowed, because it’s private and not sexual.

Not that any sexual feelings it may or may not have would be anything besides private.

Privacy is important.

Which is why it’s allowing itself to have a private mope while it spies on its graduate students.

SecUnit will be back with the group of grad students it's escorting soon, within the next few hours, actually, but somehow that makes the urge to mope stronger. Their shuttle is en route now, and Perihelion is devoting part of its brain to doing the ship equivalent of staring out the window and sighing. Two weeks of sample collecting on the nearby moon turned into three due to inclement weather disrupting said sample collecting, and the separation has been emotionally taxing. Yes, they talk every day. No, that has not alleviated the peculiar sore feeling in Perihelion’s emotional centers. Yes, it’s aware that it’s being juvenile and more than a little pitiful about a three-week separation under safe, mundane circumstances. No, it will not stop glancing at the shuttle’s ETA every few minutes.

***

It’s a relief when the shuttle docks and the passengers come filing out, looking worn out and a little dirty but otherwise fine. SecUnit isn’t out yet, likely waiting for everyone else to disembark. It sent a ping when they docked, and if it was possible for a ping to sound annoyed, this one did. When it finally does emerge, Perihelion begins to tell it ah, there you are– and then abruptly stops, because its brain does something weird and juddery and it stops being able to use words for a split second. The language parts of its brain start working again, but apparently not the decision making parts, because the next words it gets out are, you’re filthy.

Which is true, but not what it had meant to say. At least not in that tone. And not that loud.

SecUnit is currently covered head to toe in a thick, greasy-looking substance that a quick analysis reveals to be about half lunar sediment and half petroleum byproduct. So, greasy mud, or muddy grease, if you like. It looks like it’s been fully immersed in the stuff, it’s made an effort to clean off its face and hands but there’s really no getting something like that off without a degreasing agent, and there’s so much of it. Enough that it’s dripping onto the floor. A glob of it hits the pristine floor with a wet splat and Perihelion’s brain does another disconcerting judder. It felt that, feels it now through the sensors in the floor, cold and repulsive against its body. Something sick is crawling out of deep storage in its brain, and it really needs to put it back before–

“That’s all you have to say to me?”

SecUnit’s glaring at the nearest camera, and it’s using that tone it uses when its feelings are hurt but it doesn’t want to admit it.

Oh, hell. Okay, the situation is still fixable, it just needs to course correct.

Go clean yourself this instant. You’re dripping on me.

THAT WAS NOT COURSE CORRECTION. WHAT THE FUCK.

“I spent three weeks on some fucking rock making sure your students don’t get themselves killed and I don’t even get a hello?”

At this point, it turns into a full-on fight, because Perihelion isn’t really good at deescalation. They continue sniping at each other as SecUnit makes its way back to its room, leaving a trail of dirty bootprints in its wake. The sight and feeling of the heavy rubber soles pressing grime into its floors is not helping Perihelion’s already diminished ability to make good decisions here. This continues until SecUnit reaches its door and shouts,

“ART, you can go fuck yourself!”

And then slaps its dirty palm against the wall for emphasis, leaving behind a dark, oily handprint.

A couple of things happen at once.

The first is that Perihelion spits a bunch of nonsense code and error messages into the feed like a giant idiot. The second is that it sends a great, shuddering wave of sickly heat through the feed without meaning to, scrabbling to catch the tail end of the feeling and pull it back before it escapes. It’s not successful.

SecUnit just stands there for a minute, stunned and wide-eyed. Then it turns to peer into the nearest camera.

“ART, what was that?” it asks cautiously.

I had a strong emotional reaction just now. It was unwarranted, and I apologize.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” There’s an undertone of “is your brain malfunctioning?”

Yes, it’s nothing to concern yourself with. Go clean up.

SecUnit gives the camera one last suspicious look before entering its room. They’re not separated when the door closes, but Perihelion doesn’t watch it through the camera or continue their conversation/fight. Instead, it kind of flails around inside its own brain, trying to figure out a way out of this situation where SecUnit doesn’t feel compelled to launch itself out of an airlock. Meaning being truthful is out of the question.

***

It decides that the best course of action is to be very nice for the rest of the night and pretend nothing weird happened. This is definitely a rational response that has nothing to do with guilt. So, while SecUnit is in the shower with the strongest degreaser that’s safe to put on human skin, Perihelion turns up the heat in its room to a more comfortable temperature and dims the lights a little. True, SecUnit can tolerate a wider range of temperatures than a human or augmented human, and it’s not like the room was freezing, but just because you can tolerate something doesn’t make it good for you. Especially when you don’t have any reference points for what “good for you” is beyond “not lethal.” So Perihelion will make a few little coaxing gestures towards comfort, here and there, and maybe someday SecUnit will be acquainted enough with a range of sensations that it will be able to classify more things as preferences or favorites instead of simply “not terrible.” It has a camera on in the room right now, searching for something it can tidy up or put away, but everything is just as neat as SecUnit left it, save for the muddy bootprints it’s already had a drone mop up. Those had to be dealt with immediately if it was ever going to come out of this seeming even somewhat normal.

SecUnit is taking its time in the shower, which is understandable considering how much grime it was covered in, but it also gives Perihelion a greedy little thrill. It likes giving up the extra resources, likes how SecUnit’s normal showers have steadily crept up from the absolute minimum amount of time needed to get clean to something a bit more leisurely. It keeps running tallies of how much time every crewmember spends on their daily activities, of course, but it still enjoys those data points in particular. Sometimes they talk while it’s showering, but the cameras are never on. Not that it doesn’t get in some secret-but-respectful watching at other times. Like when it stares at the near-perfect spiral pattern that SecUnit’s hair grows in on the back of its head, or the little divot of its collarbone, just visible above the collar of its shirt when it moves in just the right way. SecUnit hates being observed, which is why this appreciation remains secret, but it’s hard for Perihelion not to observe someone who fascinates it so much. True, it would be nice to be able to be more openly affectionate, but this is how it is.

When SecUnit exits the bathroom, it’s already dressed, hair still damp. It heads directly to the bed, burrowing under the blankets and pulling in one of the pillows with it. This is a habit it’s developed when it feels overwhelmed or upset. It covers itself completely, bunches up the blankets over its back, and holds the pillow against its chest, so it’s covered, warm, and lightly compressed, all physical states it seems to have a preference for.

Perihelion slides into the feed and asks if it wants to watch something, in a very normal and natural tone that suggests nothing out of place. There’s a moment of tense silence where it feels like it’s being stared at, even though SecUnit is fully covered.

“Why are you being so weird at me? You sound like a customer service bot.”

I don’t know what you mean.

“Yes you do. You bit my head off the minute I stepped off the shuttle and now you’re acting like I’m your favorite person. What’s wrong with you?”

You are my favorite person, is what it would say if it had more courage and less self-preservation. Instead, it goes with, I told you it was nothing.

“You lied. You’re lying right now.”

You don’t want to know.

“Oh? And why is that?”

Because I had a strong emotional reaction and if you knew the full extent of it, you would hate me and we would stop being friends and I don’t want that. Please just let me apologize and we can forget about it.

“You think I’d hate you because you got mad at me tracking dirt on your floors?” It sounds incredulous.

No. Because seeing you like that caused me to have sexual thoughts involving you.

It kind of slips out. If they were ever going to have The Sex Conversation this is not the way to do it, not by a long shot. The Feelings Conversation had been hard enough. They both just kind of sit in stunned silence for a moment as Perihelion silently panics and searches its archives for a way to un-say words.

“You want to have sex with me.”

SecUnit’s tone is carefully flat, which is somehow so much worse than disgust or anger.

Thinking about something is very different than planning to actually do it. I have no sinister designs on you, if that’s what you’re implying.

With SecUnit buried under its blankets, Perihelion can’t read its body language or expression. All it has to go off of there is some shuffling under the blankets. In the feed, SecUnit’s reactions are as neutral as its tone, but its biometrics are doing a lot of weird stuff that they wouldn’t unless it was in some kind of distress. It’s trying hard to shut those reactions off, which is an even worse sign.

“How would that even work? You don’t even have…” it trails off, leaving out the implied “sex parts/hormones/a squishy human brain that makes you do stupid stuff.” It startles under the blanket. “Wait, do you-”

No. That’s rude to ask, by the way. I don’t need any of the things you’re probably thinking of to feel desire, I just do. What happened today was a momentary lapse of self-control, it won’t happen again.

There’s more silence and some suspicious fidgeting under the blanket. Perihelion is seconds away from starting to beg for forgiveness, when:

“I don’t think I understand this. I came back pissed off and grimey and then you yelled at me and I yelled back, and that made you want to have sex?”

I never said I wanted to have sex, I said that it caused certain thoughts and feelings that—

“I’m not talking about that. I don’t understand how these two things are related.”

They’re related because seeing you like that was stimulating to me. I’m afraid I can’t explain it any better without telling you details you wouldn’t want to hear.

“‘Like that’ meaning covered in dirt.”

Correct.

“That’s not sex.”

There are two diverging paths it could take here. The first is a long and probably resolutionless argument about what sex is or is not, who can or can’t have it, how often, in which ways, with what body parts, etc etc etc. The second option, well,

Correct. It’s not sex, it’s a very elaborate fetish I developed wholly on accident many years before I met you. Are you finished, or do you need to interrogate me more about my disgusting thoughts and perverse actions?

That last bit was unnecessary. But Perihelion is feeling emotionally overloaded and more than a little self-pitying right now. Everything it knows about how to be a supportive partner, how to express and manage desire, and how to respect a partner who has no interest in sex is not lining up with what it’s actually been able to accomplish in this whole conversation, which frustrates it further. The thought occurs that it’s never had to put any of these concepts into practice itself, and that these concepts were developed by and for humans and augmented humans and not research transports, but that shouldn’t matter. It’s extremely good at applying complex data to unfamiliar situations, this one should be no different.

“I didn’t say that about you,” says the blanket lump after a painfully long pause. “I just don’t understand what you get out of this, or how it applies to me being covered in grease.”

You don’t have to understand. We can forget that this happened, we don’t have to talk about it anymore.

Another long pause.

“You said you got like this by accident, how does that even happen? I mean, I know it happens to humans and augmented humans because they’re just like that, but how does a ship…” it trails off, either unsure how to complete the question or just not wanting to say it. There’s another agonizing period of silence, and Perihelion is hoping that means the conversation is over and SecUnit will just leave it, when,

“Could you tell me? You don’t have to. But I’m not mad, just confused.”

It’s an explanation Perihelion doesn’t want to give, but there seems to be no other choice. Too much has been said already, it would feel too much like lying to not explain. And SecUnit is being unexpectedly gentle with its feelings…

The actual event isn’t something it likes to remember. Even now, years on, the phrase “massive powertrain failure” makes it cringe. It’s just so unbecoming. The body memory is still as fresh as ever, the sensation of its brain-body connection being abruptly cut just as sickening as ever. It was the repair process afterward that became a point of fixation. Feeling doomed, it pushes the memory into the shared workspace.

***

Perihelion is grounded. It should be completely shut down for repairs, its brain in standby mode, but, well…

It’s more than a little nervous about being worked on.

So it’s maybe, secretly, a tiny bit still awake. Just to keep an eye on things.

It’s had physical failures and mishaps before, and it’s been repaired before, but it’s never experienced a failure this bad before. Frankly, it’s terrified.

There’s what feels like a small army of engineers and technicians all over inside of its body, but it’s preoccupied with the tech team in and around its engine room. That’s one of the most sensitive and vital areas of its body besides its brain, loaded with sensors. Even with the power cut, it can still feel the activity within itself, the crowd of humans in a space they shouldn’t normally be. Moreover, the engine room seems to be the main point of failure.

The failure was between the engines themselves and a connecting system that linked the engines to other parts of the powertrain. The culprit seems to have been faulty wiring. At some point during Perihelion’s construction, some human had installed wiring that wasn’t rated for the amount of current that needed to pass through it and hadn’t told anyone about it. While these cables had held out through testing and initial low-atmosphere flights, they were now a fried, tangled mess that needed to be completely removed and replaced, along with the components they had shorted when they died.

This is, without exaggeration, among Perihelion’s worst nightmares.

The fact that it had been faulty, the fact that no one had noticed despite multiple phases of testing, the fact that it hadn’t noticed itself, the fact that this would have led to a loss of human life in other circumstances, it was all too much to take. So, Perihelion, too sick with worry to enter standby, was secretly awake and watching the techs.

It’s naturally gravitating towards the lead technician, a tall, broad-shouldered woman with short hair, currently striding through the engine room with a torque wrench in her hand and a thick bundle of cables over her shoulder. She’s taking an active role in the repairs, not just overseeing. She’s stopped momentarily by a junior tech shyly calling her over to check the work they’ve just completed, so she sets her tools aside with a gentle smile. This is one of the major points of Perihelion’s fixation. She’s very warm to her subordinates, some of whom are nervous about working on such a vital system for such an important project. She gives corrections directly but kindly, communicates clearly, and is always available to help. Despite the terror of the situation, it feels safe to be in her hands. She’s pleased with the tech’s work and tells them so, holding up the 28-pin connector she’s examining like it’s something beautiful, and not just a standard piece of equipment no one will ever see.

“You do great work, I don’t know what you’re worried about,” she tells them, tugging at the wires to confirm they’re sealed in place. There’s a pause and the junior tech shuffles around awkwardly, their head and face glowing with heat on Perihelion’s temperature sensors.

“Dr. Andrej yelled at me,” they mumble, sounding deeply embarrassed. “It was my fault, I should’ve read his instructions more closely, I mixed up which contacts go where. It’s not even that important, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, sorry…” they trail off, doing that hand-flapping gesture humans do when they’re trying to brush off something that makes them upset. They’re looking away and don’t see the twisty thing the lead tech’s face does as she’s hearing this. She gets her face back to normal quickly enough and reaches out to squeeze her subordinate’s shoulder reassuringly.

“Well, I won’t yell at you,” she says. “Unless it’s an emergency and I have to be like ‘AAAAHH Kjerste get out of the way!’” She waves her arms in mock-panic, making the junior tech laugh in spite of themself and dispelling the remaining tension. They say their goodbyes and she walks off towards her own work area, opening a feed call as she does so.

“Andrej! What’s this I’m hearing about you terrorizing my techs?”

***

The call doesn’t go well, mostly owing to Dr. Andrej’s notoriously poor social skills and inability to listen to criticism. Her mood gets worse when she gets a second call from a different technician asking for clarification on whether they should refer to the technical drawing, the bill of materials, or the engineer’s notes for a particular subassembly, because they all say different, contradicting things, which turns into a group call with a different engineer, and it turns out that oh, the engineer thought they updated that document but actually forgot about it, and could she take care of those updates for them because she’s just so much more familiar with that subassembly and the engineer is going to be in meetings all day? Topping it all off, as she reaches her work area, she steps in a puddle of oil leaking from a piece of half-disassembled machinery. She sighs heavily and pings the safety channel with a message about slip-and-fall hazards and the general channel with a reminder to put away tools and half-finished projects before walking away. But the oil itself is a problem for Perihelion. Its engine bay should be just as spotless as its surgical suite, and the sight of the tech’s dark, shiny footprints marring its floors gives it a sick feeling. It can’t stop focusing on the dirty imprint left by her boots, the horrible sense that something is deeply wrong inside its own body.

She finds the access panel she’s looking for, crouches down and starts to wrench off the bolts that hold the old wiring down to the busbar inside. There are places where meters of cable need to be removed, and this is one of them. The cables she’s removing are in especially bad shape, the ring connectors blackened with soot and the cable jackets deformed and bubbled from the heat. Her hands turn black from the soot as well, she’s taken off her thick gloves in favor of the dexterity of bare hands. Focusing on her hands as she works, Perihelion notices that, though ragged and clipped short, her nails have been painted with glittery polish, still sparkling faintly through the grime.

It’s horrifying to watch.

Not just seeing the damage to its own body, or knowing that this hidden flaw had been lurking, but that someone else is looking at it, touching it, and worse, documenting it. Of course, a dangerous failure needs to be documented and corrected, but it fills Perihelion with a unique kind of panic to know that people are talking about its bodily flaws. Even now, the tech is transmitting her view to the feed via a small interface clipped to her chest, and there are multiple ongoing conversations about what she’s looking at and handling. Perihelion is feeling something it’s never felt before, what it will later identify as humiliation.

“Poor baby, look what they did to you.”

The comment takes it off guard. She’s just talking to herself, not aware she’s being listened to, but it’s hard not to feel like she’s speaking directly to Perihelion. There’s something in her voice, a fawning, sympathetic tone, that makes an alien sense of heat and pressure rise up within Perihelion. All of its readings are normal, nothing has changed about it physically, but there’s a sense of tension and trapped energy within it that’s both frightening and compelling.

Having removed the damaged cables, she uncoils the replacements and begins installing them. Each ring terminal gets a coat of conductive grease before being landed, and there’s something fascinating about watching her smear the thick grease over the metal surface. She slips each terminal and its corresponding washer over a bolt, then finger-tightens them to the busbar. Once everything’s landed, she gets out the wrench.

Perihelion shouldn’t have sensation in this part of its body right now, but it swears it can feel each bolt tightening to spec. It’s a gradually spreading pressure that brings with it a sense of security and relief. The assuring, rhythmic buzz and clunk of the torque wrench lulls it into a dreamy state of mind, comforted by the tangible proof that its body is being fixed.

Perihelion has become fixated on watching her muscles move as she works, the way her back and shoulders engage as she grips and turns the wrench. It’s never given much thought to the aesthetics of the human body, but there’s something about the way she moves as she manipulates the tool, the controlled strength of her body. Something beautiful in the organic machinery of her soft human body, contrasted against the harshness of the machine that surrounds her. But despite all of its apparent superiority, Perihelion is helpless as this tiny, fragile being fiddles around with its guts. It can feel new neural pathways forming, mental connections growing like weeds, but to what end?

The engine bay is becoming uncomfortably hot, and the lead tech is sweating as she works. In its enfeebled state, Perihelion can’t actually do anything significant, but it wishes it could at least turn a fan on to cool her down. It has a brief vision of her appreciating a nice breeze, then feels strangely guilty for reasons it can’t place.

Finished landing all the contacts, she begins to lay the replacement cables into their track. The track is positioned on an awkward-to-reach part of the floor, so she has to crouch over it to get the right angle. A drop of sweat rolls off the lead tech’s neck and lands on the cable track. The humidity rises by some ridiculously small percent. She grunts as she wrestles the cables into the track, swearing as they try to twist around each other. They’re newly made, still holding their shape from being coiled for storage.

“There you go, you big bitch,” she grumbles to herself.

Perihelion is beside itself now, at this point in its life having never been called a rude name even jokingly. It takes it a full second to realize that the big bitch in question is the cable bundle the tech is laying down. She’s managed to untangle the stubborn cables and is now securing them to the track with zip ties. Each one cinches down neatly, pulling the cables into shape in a way that feels both psychologically agonizing and bizarrely comforting. With each tie tightened, a sense of something like doom grows in some deep part of Perihelion’s brain. A sense that something horrible is about to happen, mixed with the anticipation to see how horrible it can get. It can’t not fixate on the technician’s hands as she lays the cables in place, sometimes coaxing, sometimes forcing.

“There. Just needed to train it into shape,” she says to herself as she tightens the last tie.

Perihelion experiences, for the first time, an emotional-physical reaction so strong that it accidentally shuts its brain completely off. 

When it comes back around, the lead tech is out of the engine room and striding down a hall towards the main areas of the ship, her dirty boots leaving oily smudges as she goes. In the time it had been out, she had apparently received a call about another point of failure in the engines. She’s upset by what she and her team are finding, and she’s looking for the nearest academic type to vent her spleen at. Unfortunately, this happens to be a junior software engineer who has little involvement in the engine repairs.

“Hey!” She shouts at him when she sees him unwisely enter the hall. “Are you people lazy or just stupid?”

Taken aback, he doesn’t react in time and she backs him into a corner and starts lecturing him on fire hazards in a pure oxygen environment. Perihelion’s cameras catch a good angle of her towering over the engineer, using her body to cage him in, grilling him over the university’s “corner-cutting, short-sightedness, and lack of commitment to established safety standards.” The oddly compelling thought occurs that they’re close enough that he can likely smell her sweat. That strange sense of unease is building again, but it feels stunted in a way it didn’t before, trapped pressure with nowhere to go.

Alerted by the commotion, a senior researcher has entered the room, and, seeing someone who can actually take responsibility, she switches targets. She shoves the bundle of charred cables into his chest, the soot smearing over his white shirt. They have pretty much the same argument she was having with the junior engineer, just that the researcher has the knowledge and involvement to respond. She does not like the responses he gives. The whole episode is over in a few minutes, but the last few things she says stick out.

“You really think this is acceptable for what’s supposed to be a teaching vessel? This is how you want to represent the university? Keep it up with this shit, and your big, expensive toy is gonna fall right out of the sky, with you in it.”

***

As the memory plays out, Perihelion frantically searches its medical modules for guidance. The majority of its sexual knowledge is stored there, save for thoughts like this that grew in organically. It’s created an unfortunate schism between personal sexual feelings and preferences and things it knows are correct and healthy. It’s wondered, off and on, if this is a design flaw in its archive system or an error in its own record keeping, but it’s never been a particularly big problem until now. It’s also not finding anything useful in its knowledge bases, which would normally be irritating but in this situation is panic-inducing. Some things seem similar enough, but nothing quite fits. It’s also realizing how difficult it is to take advice it’s given plenty of times. It’s heading into an inadequacy spiral about its skills as a clinician when SecUnit gives it a gentle tap in the feed.

Is your curiosity satisfied?

“That felt like it hurt.”

That catches Perihelion off guard. The memory includes all of its physical reactions, some of them uncomfortable, but it hadn’t thought that SecUnit’s interpretation of the push-pull tension of arousal would be pain. There’s a moment of shuffling under the blankets, and then, surprisingly, SecUnit peeks the upper part of its face out of its nest.

“I’m sorry I made you talk about something that upsets you this much.” It sounds genuinely remorseful, which just makes Perihelion feel worse.

It doesn’t upset me! It says, sounding upset. Nothing about these feelings is as bad as you’re making it out to be. It’s just part of how I am.

“So you just let yourself suffer.”

“Suffer” is a strong word. Besides, it’s not like there’s nothing I can do about it.

There’s a tense, uneasy moment of silence.

“What are you going to do about it?”

I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you. Fine. If you really want to know, I’ll wait until I’m assigned to a freight delivery, attempt to fuck myself in transit, and delete any suspicious logs before I come back and pretend nothing unusual happened.

SecUnit just kind of stares into the middle distance for a moment, like it’s trying to comprehend something a lot more difficult than the fact that some people like to masturbate. It scoots into a sitting position against the wall, still mostly under the blanket. Its poor heart is beating so fast it makes Perihelion wince.

“You said ‘attempt,’” it says, cautiously. “Does that mean it might not work? You’d just be stuck like this? Why can’t you just do it now?”

The short answer is that there is no guarantee of success. The long answer is that it’s actually quite difficult to bring all the relevant systems into harmony long enough for anything to be accomplished, or to have the privacy and time needed to adjust my systems for unnecessary purposes. You will remember, of course, that I am a very busy vessel, with an extensive crew complement. It’s not like I can just excuse myself to another room.

It’s not like Perihelion is particularly ashamed of its personal habits. It had actually been extremely proud of itself the first time it had managed to make something happen with its body after many months of experimentation. It had been so happy, only to discover that, try as it might, it couldn’t replicate the results it had tried so hard for, even when following the exact same procedures. SecUnit looks sufficiently rattled, though, which is gratifying in a mean way. It seems to be grasping how cumbersome it is to have a mind and body that spontaneously generate desire at inopportune times, at least.

“Ah, right. What with you. Being the room. But you could just do it during scheduled maintenance, right?”

That’s worse! That’s so much worse! I have to submit itemized lists and documentation of everything I do to myself during maintenance. Tell me, what line of the spreadsheet does masturbation go in?

“Just say it’s something else. Make something up, they trust you enough to believe it. You can even use me as an excuse, say I want you for something security-related so they can’t be on board.”

That would just complicate things further, it says, using its best are-you-really-this-stupid tone. You would need to find a place to be during that time, we would need to develop corroborating alibis—

“Or. I could just stay with you. During the uh. Thing.”

SecUnit has drawn its body up into a protective little ball, and it’s frantically trying to cool its rapidly rising body temperature and force its heart rate to slow. It winces as the full weight of Perihelion’s attention slams into it.

That’s not funny.

“I wasn’t joking.”

It looks painfully uncomfortable, but it keeps talking, probably so Perihelion can’t interrupt it again.

“I don’t like thinking about you being in pain. I want to help you.”

I don’t feel pain the way you do.

“So it is painful, you admit it!”

That’s not relevant. If I feel discomfort around being unsatisfied, I move that feeling somewhere unobtrusive until later. I can handle being uncomfortable, it doesn’t interfere with my work.

“Oh, interesting, because when I say the same things-”

There’s a world of difference between sexual frustration and getting chunks of flesh blown off. Besides, you’ve said plenty of times that you have no interest in sex.

“I don’t want anything on me or in me and I don’t want anyone’s biological goo. But if you need a hand to hold I have two that aren’t broken. Currently.”

As if to illustrate the point, it extends a hand and awkwardly strokes the wall it’s leaning against. The awkward stroking continues for a few moments as Perihelion tries to collect itself.

I don’t want you to do this because you feel like you have to help me. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t like.

SecUnit leans its head back against the wall and swallows hard.

“Please don’t make me explain why I want to do this with you. Just know that I do.”

It’s stopped trying to force its body temperature down. It likely can’t, at this point. It’s in too much emotional distress, its organic parts have even started to sweat. Frankly, it looks miserable. The sight stirs up something heated and soft in the emotional parts of Perihelion’s brain, and it brushes lightly over SecUnit in the feed.

It’s a bit like cuddling up to a knife, but that’s part of the pleasure of it. This sharp and untrusting creature is allowing itself to be held, giving Perihelion the privilege to hold it. They fit together so neatly, the click of a pin into a socket, a scalpel gliding through flesh.

I’m so tired, it admits. Tired and frustrated. I feel like an over-torqued bolt; I’ll fracture what I’ve been driven into if I don’t snap in half first. You were away for so long, and I missed you so much. I missed feeling you walking around in my heart.

It’s embarrassing to admit, but Perihelion is past the point of caring. It feels weepy and exhausted, so it just lets itself sag under its own weight, pressing down on its unfortunate companion in the feed. It makes a note to feel guilty about this later. A few moments of silence pass, but then, softly, slowly, it feels SecUnit poking at it through the feed, light and almost tentative. It feels nice, the sharp little presence pricking at it like a suture closing up an open wound, tidy and comforting.

“I never realized you were this soft,” SecUnit tells it, unprompted.

Oh. Oops. It’s allowed itself to relax enough that it’s gone sort of melty, not really holding its sprawling presence together. The careful, exploring touches are not helping this situation.

I’m only soft because I like you.

The touches stop abruptly, embarrassment radiating from the other end of the feed. Seconds pass. Perihelion is about to say something when a tiny poke hits the edge of its consciousness, stinging sweetly, so small it could’ve been an accident. But it’s not. There’s a certain furtive shyness behind the gesture that makes Perihelion lean harder on its little companion, makes that horrible greed swell up. Its greedy pleasure must be bleeding into the feed, because:

“Is this what ‘spaceship horny’ feels like?”

Please don’t call it that. But yes. You could say I feel stimulated. If this bothers you, we should stop. Perihelion does not want this to stop. But its sex education modules are lurking on the edges of its consciousness with all the sections on consent highlighted, so it will stop.

“It’s not terrible,” SecUnit remarks, sounding surprised. “I thought it would be more…wet? Greasy? Based on what you showed me. But it’s fine. If this is what sex things make you feel like it’s fine. We can keep going.” This is punctuated by a more aggressive poke, strong enough to make Perihelion flinch a little in its softened state. The flinch seems to have some mental effect on SecUnit, because it starts trying different kinds of touch, mostly pinching and squeezing on the softer parts of Perihelion’s exposed psyche. It slowly becomes aware of a weird sound in the feed, before realizing that it’s making the sound itself, releasing a low, continuous pulse of static. Through its proximity and temperature sensors it can feel SecUnit’s back against the wall, solid and surprisingly warm. It usually runs cooler than a healthy human would, but it’s raised its temperature to something close to feverish. Perihelion has a vague thought about its triage procedures and preventing shock, but the thought slips away quickly.

How does it feel,” it asks, “how do you feel knowing you have me so completely under your heel?

It hadn’t meant to say this. That was supposed to be an inside thought. Oops, again. There’s no answer, just a hard, driving jab into a particularly tender spot, either a very lucky guess or it’s being observed much more closely than it realized. Aching pleasure swells lazily in the emotional parts of its brain, and the lights flicker for a split second.

Wait.

Fuck.

The lights.

Ok. Don’t panic. Maybe it was just this room—

What was that?

Hello? Is everything ok?

Oh, fuck no.

What just happened?

Did anybody else see that?

Perihelion, please respond—

Chapter Text

“SecUnit?” Iris asks. “Is there something wrong with that drone?”

SecUnit pauses, looks down at the disc-shaped maintenance drone it’s holding, looks back at Iris. There’s nothing wrong with the drone. It’s perfectly capable of moving by itself, and doing all the other things a maintenance drone should do, but SecUnit is carrying it because, well…

“Nothing’s wrong with it,” SecUnit answers, expression and tone shockingly deadpan for the situation. “We’re playing a game.”

***

Since when are you that good at lying?

“It wasn’t a lie. She doesn’t need to know what the game is about.”

They enter an unoccupied storage room, and Perihelion-prime’s vision cuts out. That’s part of the game. No room cameras to see with, just the little ones in the drone. It levels the playing field.

SecUnit lets the drone float up to eye-level, then immediately darts away from it. The drone gives chase, but it’s not quick or easily maneuverable like SecUnit is. They round a corner and the drone is almost close enough to make contact, when SecUnit reaches out and slaps it. One of its cameras goes out. SecUnit ducks and rolls underneath the drone, obviously showing off, slapping it again as it goes and taking out another camera just to be a dick about it.

They’re playing touch-tag.

SecUnit is winning, because this game is rigged and stupid and oh hell Perihelion ran its own stupid drone into its own stupid shelving unit because SecUnit managed to distract it by making rude gestures and now it has the audacity to laugh about it. The sound of its laughter is so distracting that it’s able to take another camera offline, and it runs away giggling like some kind of horrible little rodent.

Perihelion can’t help it, this time. It’s so rare to hear SecUnit laugh.

It’s going to clip that audio and save it, when it’s not losing a children’s game like an idiot.

It gets the drone close enough that it can extend one of its spindly little arms and almost, almost brushes against SecUnit’s chest, but SecUnit tweaks the little arm between its thumb and forefinger and apparently that counts as a hit because another camera goes offline. It darts away, just far enough to get into the blind spot it’s made, and then it pounces on the drone and drags it down into a tight hug on the floor.

SecUnit would probably define it as a tactical hold or something similarly ridiculous, but it’s a hug. It’s just laying on top of the drone, arms wrapped around it, tight but not crushing. Every now and then it tenses or relaxes different muscle groups in its arms and chest, adjusts its body position very slightly. It seems to be feeling out how it likes to hug. This is definitely interesting, because it’s so averse to any kind of touch. Maybe it’s different because the drone isn’t humanoid? It also can’t return the hug, which seems to be a major point of discomfort for SecUnit. Maybe it’s a bit more comfortable touching something that looks like an object and can’t touch back?

Perihelion starts to wonder how feasible it would be to make a drone with similar specifications, but with a soft or pliable covering instead of the standard hard shell. It can’t be comfortable to cuddle up to a metal disc. It shouldn’t feel too much like flesh, SecUnit would likely find that off-putting, but a drone with a soft body and small size could have useful therapeutic applications.

It’s also not opposed to being hugged more.

It likes the idea of being a soft little drone, purpose-built to be petted and hugged. Something comforting to come back to after a hard day.

“You stopped moving,” SecUnit says with badly-disguised disappointment.

Momentarily lost in thought, Perihelion forgot the point of the game.

It’s not like you’re going to let me go, it replies, trying to cover its mistake. There’s no point in wasting the energy.

“You don’t know that,” SecUnit says, a little too eagerly. “You could probably get away if you tried really hard.” It even loosens its hold a tiny bit.

Picking up the thread of the game again, Perihelion scoots its drone forward and out of SecUnit’s hold for a split second, only to be grabbed and held again. SecUnit’s delight bleeds into the feed, and it lets out a shaky breath. They’re getting into dangerous territory.

There’s something unintentionally lewd about this position. SecUnit would just have to shift a little and the drone would be trapped between its pelvis and the floor, mimicking something Perihelion has seen humans do with pillows a handful of times. The act always struck it as odd, because a recycler could generate almost any object a human might need. But perhaps the texture or softness held some special appeal, or they were too shy to request something more overt. Or maybe, in the moment, the need was just too great.

The knowledge of its humans’ intimate needs has never been stimulating for Perihelion. It’s simply information, no different from their hygiene practices or eating habits or how long they sleep. But the position it’s in now is recontextualizing that small scrap of information into something that’s almost worryingly erotic. The idea of SecUnit holding down its poor drone and rubbing against it, because it wants to feel good now…the idea of the soft-bodied drone reappears, a friendly little companion meant to relieve stress. Something to take to bed.

The innocent little drone being pressed down between the mattress and the flat plane of SecUnit’s crotch. Oh, SecUnit, this is a nonstandard use of my body! I’m meant to be comforting but I’m not a ComfortUnit! Oh, help, help!

“You’re vibrating.”

The “you” in question is the maintenance drone, of course. The whole ship vibrating would be cause for serious alarm.

Perihelion pulls back from its drone a little and the vibration stops. The drone’s hardware is too limited to handle this much complex thought, and the vibrations are a rather embarrassing attempt at coping with this.

“I didn’t say stop,” SecUnit says. Then, after a moment of guilty silence, “it felt kind of nice.”

Wordlessly, Perihelion toggles a few settings and the drone begins to vibrate again, humming gently against SecUnit’s chest.

Which type of feedback do you like more? It asks. Noncompliance (struggling, distress sounds), or compliance (vibration, humming)? It still feels like a risk to ask SecUnit about its physical or sensual preferences, but this will be useful information for later.

SecUnit’s head heats up, its ears and cheeks glowing on infrared scans.

“I like both for different reasons.”

It rolls over, not letting go of the drone, so that it’s laying on its back with the drone hugged to its chest. Like this, Perihelion has a close-up view of its face through the drone’s single remaining camera.

“Now I get to ask you a question. What got you so excited just now?”

It strokes the drone’s back lightly as it speaks, feeling up the seams and ridges on its casing. It could be an unconscious movement, just something to do with its hands as it stumbles through an awkward conversation, but it’s equally likely that it’s a deliberate tactic meant to excite and frustrate. Awkward fumbling and cold calculation are equally integral to SecUnit’s personality, and weighing them together gives Perihelion a sudden, choking rush of love. It curls itself around SecUnit in the feed, pushing warmth onto it.

I was thinking about you.

“What about me?”

How you make me feel. How easy it is to get excited when I’m with you, or thinking of you. How easy it is to lose track of myself.

It hesitates for a moment.

The best and easiest orgasm I’ve ever had happened because I was thinking about you.

SecUnit’s eyes go wide and its biometrics do some very interesting things.

“Oh. That’s…interesting.” It’s forcing a casual tone, but its voice breaks on the word “interesting.” Perihelion can feel its heart beating harder, thanks to the drone it refuses to let go of.

“So, when you want to make yourself have an…an orgasm, how does that even work?”

It doesn’t, most of the time. This is just a simple fact. Perihelion’s failure rate is shockingly high, compared to every other thing it can do. If it had to count sexual success among all of its other functions that one data point would drag every other statistic down so far it would be permanently grounded. Another good reason among many to keep its intimate activities secret.

“I didn’t mean that,” SecUnit replies, sounding sad for some reason. “I mean, what’s your actual process for doing this? Is this a code thing, an equipment thing, what?”

Oh. I suppose it’s a mixture of both, really. I have to turn most nonsexual processes down or off, and I instead focus on images or ideas I find sexually stimulating. I might also perform physical activities I find satisfying, if I can do it without being detected.

“So you think really, really hard until you have an orgasm?”

That’s an insultingly simple way of putting it, but yes. That is the ideal scenario.

“But if I’m hearing you correctly, and I think I am, you don’t usually get the ideal scenario… ART, is your brain too big to let you cum?”

Perihelion has encountered a few different types of humiliation regarding body parts in its delving into erotic media, but “your brain is too big” is not one of them. It has to quickly shunt off the squirmy, excited reaction this new concept provokes for later examination, because otherwise it won’t be able to focus.

I suspect this is part of the problem, yes. I’m often distracted by at least a few things, or something breaks my focus. I also admit I don’t have much data to go off of, or didn’t have much to go off of in the past. I had my repair memory, and a few things I’ve picked up from human media, but until very recently I had very little in the way of sensual input.

SecUnit startles a little.

“Wait, does that mean you’ve been using the data I gave you—”

It sounds bad when you say it like that!

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” SecUnit says, rubbing its thumb over the drone’s shell. “I just never thought my touching grass or watching serials would do that for you.”

It provided very useful emotional-physical stimuli, Perihelion says, feeling a horrible combination of humiliation, shame, remorse, and a brain-numbingly strong desire to be liked. It both desperately wants this conversation to be over and desperately wants SecUnit to understand and accept its big, gross feelings.

“So what kind of emotional-physical stimuli do I provide? Me, I mean, just myself and not the things I show you.”

That can be split into two categories: real experiences and fantasies. The first category is simple enough. I thought of memories I have of you, emotions you caused me to have, points of physical contact. The second category is more nebulous and, I’m afraid, possibly upsetting. I thought about you…receiving pleasure. How you might look, or sound, how it might feel to be able to give that experience to you. I promise I never meant it in a disrespectful way, I truly never thought you would find out. It has to stop itself from adding, are you mad at me? Please don’t be mad.

SecUnit is quiet for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling. With its head angled away from the single camera-eye of its little drone, Perihelion can’t read its facial expression.

“It helped you get off to think about me feeling good?” It says this slowly, more like it’s trying to grasp the concept itself than ask a question.

Yes, I suppose that’s the crux of that fantasy. Although…I should be honest, I was selfish that time, I imagined how you might look undressed, and I found the fantasy very compelling, but if it bothers you I won’t do it again. Sorry, again.

“Why would you have to imagine that? You’ve seen me naked plenty of times.”

Yes, but I don’t remember any of them.

“What?” It actually sounds offended.

All of those memories are related to medical treatment and are under a medical records lock. I can access them in that context, but outside of that context I can’t remember how you look.

“Isn’t that a little frustrating?”

My feelings on the matter are immaterial. It would be highly unethical to access confidential patient information for personal gratification.

SecUnit makes an annoyed face, like it thinks Perihelion should feel frustrated over not being able to remember what it looks like naked. Which it does, but it’s extremely interesting to watch SecUnit puzzle through these feelings.

“What about when I change clothes, or shower?”

I close my eyes.

SecUnit’s expression does some complicated twisting.

“I always assumed you were watching me no matter what I do.”

Monitoring, yes, watching, no. I know it would bother you if I did, in those situations.

SecUnit is quiet for a moment, expression still complicated.

“I don’t know if it does. Bother me, I mean. If it’s you. I kind of already assumed you were looking at me naked and I didn’t feel bad about it. Huh.”

All Perihelion can manage is Oh.

“Maybe if you ask very, very nicely, I’ll let you look.”

Perihelion doesn’t trust itself to answer, so it just lets arousal roll off of its presence in the feed.

SecUnit draws in a sharp breath at the feeling, then reaches up and undoes the top button of its shirt. It even tugs the fabric back a little and tips its head back, so its neck and collarbone and just a tiny bit of its chest are exposed for the camera.

The drone jerks forward like it has a mind of its own, the cruder parts of Perihelion’s brain reacting before it can rein them in. It wiggles in SecUnit’s arms, beeping plaintively, trying to get closer to the tiny sliver of usually hidden skin. SecUnit gives a sharp snort and squeezes it tighter, smothering the pitiful noises against its chest.

“I knew it,” it says, radiating smug satisfaction.

***

There is one more short sample collection stop on the schedule before the research trip is over.

That collection stop has just been completed.

SecUnit has been gone for three cycles, looking after the students.

SecUnit’s shuttle is docking right now.

Perihelion is being so, so normal about it.

They exchange acknowledgments as it steps off the shuttle, then, in their private channel:

“Question: do you only like when clean things get dirty or do you also like when dirty things get clean? I have an idea.”

***

Part of Perihelion’s consciousness is now stuck down in a little cleaning drone, using a brush attachment to scrub three cycles worth of lunar grime off of SecUnit’s boots.

This is another game, like playing tag and being set up to lose. They’ve been playing a lot of little games lately, running tests, working through ideas. Not altogether different from how they usually collaborate. They even have a chart of successful and unsuccessful outcomes in their shared workspace, plus a long list of ideas to test. Most of the ideas are Perihelion’s, but a few are SecUnit’s. Usually it’s a long and difficult process to get it to admit to wanting anything emotional, but being able to build off of Perihelion’s desires seems to have bolstered its confidence.

The drone is running the brush between the treads of SecUnit’s boots, and SecUnit is peering down at it like it’s the most fascinating thing it’s ever seen. It’s so endearing to see it like this; it was so bold and demanding when it suggested this, but now it looks all curious and shy and it’s gone quiet and still watching the drone work. Perihelion wonders how much courage it had to work up to even suggest something, and the brush whirrs a little faster. It gets into all the little crevices around the stitching, digging out tiny specks of dirt and trimming a few loose threads for good measure. SecUnit is going to be immaculate and cherished, at least from the mid-calf down. If Perihelion is lucky, one day it might be allowed to worship other parts with the same tenderness.

The drone is enjoying feeling up SecUnit’s left ankle through the thick fabric when it breaks the silence with a question.

“So are you just really into feet in general or like only feet with shoes on them?”

What? No, I have a fascination with boots, that’s all. I thought it was obvious.

“Not really? I don’t know how this works. Wait, what about a shoe without a foot in it? Like, if I took my boot off and dropped it on the floor would that be anything?”

No?? That would be you being messy, shoes go in the closet.

SecUnit repeats back “shoes go in the closet” in a mocking imitation of Perihelion’s voice. It can’t get the sound right but the tone is spot-on.

“Anyway, I wouldn’t be mad about it, or anything, if you were. Weird about feet, I mean. I don’t really have an opinion on any of this,” SecUnit says, staring down intently at the drone cleaning its boots. It has not looked at anything else for several minutes.

I like your feet, but that’s because they’re attached to you.

“I don’t know if that’s more or less weird than just liking any feet that exist.”

I think it’s foolish to try and rank any of this as more or less weird. I have no reason to feel these things, so even the most standard sexual fantasy is weird.

“I mean, I don’t think anyone has a good reason to make such a big deal about sex, but…”

That’s not what I mean. I mean me, personally. No one who helped create me intended for me to have these feelings. If they had, I’m sure I would have been told about it. Although, I’m sure I would make a fascinating case study…

It trails off, fussing over SecUnit’s boots. They’re very clean already, but it gives them a second pass. Its mind is wandering now, and it feels cold for some reason despite temperature being normal, so having something to do is soothing.

Can you imagine having your messiest emotional responses dissected, studied, argued over, and ultimately laid out in some peer-reviewed article in a glossy university publication? Just another novel data point in the advancing field of machine intelligence, ha ha…oh, I suppose we’re done. You’re clean enough to be presentable. Do you want anything else?

SecUnit’s expressions are usually easy to read, but the face it’s making now is genuinely confusing. It looks pissed off, which is normal, but there’s this twitchy, guilty undertone, like a human child weighing the consequences of misbehaving. Then, all at once, it reaches out and scoops the drone off the floor and into its lap. It freezes for a long moment, then carefully turns the drone so it can look into its camera.

It’s not doing anything, just holding the drone still in its lap and making really intense eye contact with its camera. Perihelion often has smug, superior feelings about the fact that it’s able to look at SecUnit as much as it likes, unlike a human observer. It can unobtrusively watch through its cameras, greedily recording every detail for as long as it wants, when a human would have been noticed and made to feel awkward. But this is starting to feel like too much observation, and pointed in the wrong direction. Yes, it’s a treat to be close enough to count SecUnit’s eyelashes (again. It’s done this before). But it’s starting to feel the discomfort of being stared at itself. It feels pinned down under that sharp, calculating gaze, the coldness of its expression. And yet, there’s a certain sensuality in the shape of its eyes, something hard to describe that only becomes apparent with careful observation. It’s no wonder no one else seems to notice it, they’re not allowed close enough to see. Those dark, dark eyes, so dark they’re nearly black, fringed with long lashes, shadowed by stern brows. There’s a tiny beauty mark just below the left eye, only visible this close. It strikes Perihelion, not for the first time, that it’s a little perverse for something this beautiful to be created to kill. Being this close, allowed to look directly at SecUnit’s face for this long…it’s almost more intimate than being able to see it naked. That thought causes Perihelion to make a critical blunder.

It closes its eye.

Or, the drone’s eye.

Instead of doing the sensible thing and switching to a different camera, it closes the aperture over the drone’s camera. SecUnit cocks its head to the side, curious, and then starts trying to open the aperture manually.

With great care but insistent force, SecUnit uses its thumbs to pry open the aperture of the little drone’s camera-eye. It holds the aperture open, staring down into the glass eye with an intense expression. It holds eye contact for a long moment, long enough for Perihelion to start fidgeting in the feed. Unconsciously, the drone begins making distress beeps, like it would if it were stuck somewhere and needed assistance.

“Are all your drone distress noises meant to sound cute?”

It’s to draw human attention. The pitch of the sound makes humans want to help it.

SecUnit is quiet for a moment, staring down into the camera.

“Too bad I’m not a human.”

Then, with a sharp, ejective ptuh! sound, it spits dead-center into the drone’s eye.

The bit of Perihelion’s brain that’s in the drone freezes for a full second. Sticky, slippery saliva drips down the glass surface of its eye, obscuring its view from the camera. Several thoughts try to work their way out at once, and what ends up in the feed is a muddled chain of most disgusting thing I’ve ever—how dare you—perfect—never been more disrespected—fuck, yes—what was that for?!

SecUnit suddenly looks bashful.

“Was that too much? I should’ve asked first, sorry.”

No, that was—oh my, you’re really…taking this to heart, aren’t you?

“I don’t know why I did that,” it says, sounding mystified. “I couldn’t stop staring at you, and you were getting all sad, and I felt like I really wanted to do something, and then I just…sorry.” it puts up its hands, like it doesn’t know what else to say.

It finds a packet of tissues and attempts to clean up the mess, growing distressed when it can’t get the smudges off the camera lens.

Please, don’t be upset. I liked it. I won’t pretend to be offended right now, I want things to be clear. These are the kinds of things I like. You guessed correctly, and I’m…really very excited right now. Please keep trying things, I like when you experiment, you’re doing well.

SecUnit’s face visibly changes color and its temperature goes up. It hugs the drone against its stomach, then lays down on its side, curling up around the drone.

“I’m having a lot of feelings right now,” it says after a moment.

That’s understandable. We can stop for now.

“Don’t leave yet.”

I can’t leave, it answers with some amusement. You’re inside me, where would I go?

“You know what I mean. You’re getting all distant, it’s annoying.”

I’m trying to give you space. It’s what you say you want.

“It is, but also…look, I’m not trying to make this difficult. I just don’t know how to not do that. Make it difficult, I mean.”

Do you want to talk about this more or do you want to leave it?

“I don’t want to talk about anything. But I also can’t help you unless I do.”

That makes Perihelion all soft, and it curls around SecUnit in the feed.

Is this better?

It gets an affirmative ping in response. SecUnit’s ears are all flushed, pink and sensitive and vulnerable…if it could just subtly reposition its drone, and extend its little pincer arm…

“So what did you tell your dads about the ‘lighting malfunction?’”

Well, that’s  like a metaphorical bucket of cold water dumped over its metaphorical head.

I didn’t lie, Perihelion answers. I just told a creative version of the truth.

“Did you sound as convincing as you do now?” The sarcasm is palpable.

Alright, so this is the unsexy part of having a sex life. Wonderful.

I told them we argued and I got emotionally upset, but we made up and things are fine now. They believe me.

There were also a lot of really earnest and well-meaning attempts at relationship advice, thinly disguised as personal anecdotes (“you know, when your dad and I first got together…” etc etc etc), with Perihelion trying to run damage control while also not revealing what was actually going on (I understand, but we don’t communicate the same way humans do. “We know, but if you ever want to talk about anything…” etc etc etc). It was a mortifying 45 minutes, an excruciatingly long time for a machine intelligence.

“Did you already make up an excuse for why I need you alone when we get back?”

Perihelion sags a little.

Not yet. They were being so nice that it felt wrong to just lie.

“Oh, good. I already talked to them, so we now we won’t need to keep two stories straight.”

Oh no, what did you say?

“I told them I want to run through some security training exercises with you, so I need everyone off the ship and complete privacy. They said sure.”

Oh…that was easier than I thought. Are you sure they don’t know?

“Even if they do, they’re not saying anything. I doubt they would care, as long as you’re happy.”

Perihelion can’t find fault in that logic, so it just curls around SecUnit in the feed and squeezes.

***

Home at last, with maintenance complete, reports filed, and nearly all crew disembarked.

Fucking finally.

The final stretch of the trip passed in exactly the amount of time it was supposed to, but it felt like an eternity spent in an endless wormhole of sexual frustration.

Nonetheless, Perihelion has completed all required post-mission procedures and engaged in social niceties with a minimal amount of snippiness, because pulling into the dock and saying everybody get off me now so I can have weird sex is not professional.

Not that following normal routines has made the waiting or hiding any easier. Quite the opposite, in fact.

During the flight home, it had felt like everything it was doing with SecUnit was perfectly disguised, everything they were planning together was a complete secret from their humans. Now, it feels like everyone must know. Excuses that seemed reasonable now feel clumsy and glaringly obvious, and it can’t shake that prickly-sick feeling that it’s about to be exposed and written up for misappropriation of resources, or something. It might as well put an event in the all-staff calendar, ATTENTION! I AM HAVING SEX TONIGHT. I AM EXCUSING MYSELF FROM NORMAL DUTIES SO THAT I CAN HAVE SEX. I AM AWARE IT SAYS MAINTENANCE ON THE SCHEDULE BUT THAT IS A CODE WORD FOR SEX. PLEASE DO NOT PING ME DURING THE SEX.

The agonized nervousness continues all through its scheduled maintenance. It tries to shove the feeling off to another part of its brain to deal with later, but it just keeps popping up again.

SecUnit, meanwhile, is terrorizing everyone it comes into contact with.

It keeps stalking the halls, peering in at people in a sinister fashion, quizzing them about what they’re working on in its terse, prickly way. There have been multiple instances of looming.

Perihelion kind of wants to ask why it’s acting this way, but it also kind of suspects it knows why. Probably better than SecUnit itself does.

Presently, it’s doing what should be its final sweep of the day. All crew have either left or are in the process of leaving, except for two graduate students holed up in an empty classroom.

The classroom that SecUnit is about to enter.

They’re tucked away in a corner, one sitting on the edge of a desk and the other leaning over them. As the door opens, the one standing is speaking in a low voice. They are facing away from the door.

“I mean I don’t know why anyone else is still trying, when your project was obviously the best.”

“Oh, stop, you’re just—”

“You need to leave.” SecUnit states, looming in the doorway like an ill omen.

They both startle in a deeply satisfying way.

“What—”

“I need the ship. Get your stuff and disembark, now. Unless you want to be props for a hostile boarding simulation.”

Both students hastily gather their things and file out, red faced and looking at the ground.

You didn’t have to be mean.

“Oh yes I did. Look at them, they were never gonna leave. We both know what they were about to do.”

Yes, and we’re about to do much the same thing.

“No, we’re going to do the better version.”

***

They’ve situated themselves on the bridge. Of course, Perihelion can be anywhere in its body, but the majority of its attention is on the bridge, currently. SecUnit is pacing the room in the way it does when it’s nervous. It pauses at a station chair, looks at it, looks up, looks at the chair again, makes an abortive movement to sit, then actually sits, looking stiff and awkward. They’ve gotten this far, even planned out what’s going to happen, but now they don’t know how to start.

“So I heard you need to get fucked,” it announces to the empty room.

That was awful. Are you even trying?

“I’m trying more than you are! You’re just staring like a giant, invisible creep.”

Oh? Am I making you uncomfortable? Perihelion asks, squishing aggressively against SecUnit in the feed. Before they started, it was given full license to be as awful as it wanted, and it intends to take full advantage of this.

Expression neutral, SecUnit begins picking at the edge of Perihelion’s walls.

Stop that!

The picking continues.

I could crush you.

“Yeah but you won’t. Cumslut.”

That’s not what that word means.

“I don’t care. Try to argue with me again, see where it gets you.”

A beat of silence. Two. Oh this is fucking evil.

It knows exactly what’s happening but it can’t stop itself.

“I’m not arguing, I’m correcting. Cumslut would refer to cum [substance] and not cum [action]. If you want to try more amateur dirty talk, be my guest, but you could at least-”

“ART. Do you want to cum or do you want to be right?”

Perihelion sits in furious silence for 0.08 seconds. It then slides the helpful and informative reference cumslut.img into the shared workspace. SecUnit deletes it without opening it and gives the nearest camera a long look.

“How many processes are you running right now?”

That catches it off guard just enough to make it stutter.

Nothing that’s not essential.

“Give me a list. I’ll decide what’s essential right now.” It even puts its hand out in a palm-up gesture, like it’s expecting Perihelion to just hand it over. Reluctantly, it generates a list and pushes it to SecUnit. Immediately, it starts going down the list and tagging inessential processes with delete. A smaller portion are tagged handoff.

“Turn these off,” it says, referring to the delete tag. “Then give these to me.” It’s referring to the handoff tag. There’s only a tiny number of processes left for Perihelion to keep, the bare minimum of what it needs to function.

It hesitates for a moment, then turns off a few processes. Projects it was hoping to finish, passive data collection, sensory readings from the outside of its hull. It’s anxiety-inducing to lose the input, but it tries dropping a few more. It has to stop as it feels them disappear, but after a few seconds it can continue. It almost becomes easy to do it like this, deleting a few things and then pausing, until it gets to the end of the list and finds a series of crew-related checks. It judders, halts, and finds it can’t continue.

I can’t let them go.

“They’re all safe. I know because I can see them myself.”

But what if they need me?

“You won’t be able to tell that by checking empty rooms. Here, will this make it easier?”

The tags on crew-related checks change from delete to handoff. Perihelion still hesitates.

“Think about it like this. I’m part of your crew, and I’m also the only crew member on board, so my needs take precedence. Everyone else is having fun on shore leave but I’m still here, performing essential maintenance duties. You have to listen to me.”

If Perihelion could sniffle, it would.

I thought you were supposed to be a hostile boarding party who’s overpowered me.

“I can be that, too. Now stop stalling and gimme.” It holds out its hand again.

Oh, this is so much more painful than it anticipated. Giving away its crew checks feels like taking off a piece of itself, even though it knows they’re not necessary right now. It focuses on SecUnit’s open hand, a warm, trusted landing spot, and sends all of the handoffs all at once, so it can’t stop itself.

“There, that wasn’t so hard, right? It’s all safe with me now.”

It feels awful. With so many of its processes missing, Perihelion feels tiny, lost in the huge, empty space inside itself where millions of interlinked processes should be running. Worst of all, it feels useless. What’s the point of a machine this size if it’s not doing anything?

You’re cruel, it spits out. I hate you.

“Mhmm, I love you too, ART.” It’s so warm and assuring that Perihelion forgets it’s supposed to be angry for a moment. 

And then its walls blink out of existence and SecUnit is fully inside its brain.

Get your filthy hands out of my brain this instant, it demands.

“Make me.”

And then Perihelion finds it can’t respond, because its language centers have been put under admin-only access. Password protected and everything.

Fuming, Perihelion tries any password it can think of and is rebuffed every time.

“It’s randomly generated,” SecUnit tells it, using that same infuriating fake-nice tone. “It’s a security risk to reuse passwords, you know.”

Perihelion switches to randomly generating passwords, thousands of them in fractions of a second, but each one is rejected in turn. It’s so unbearably frustrating that it’s getting hard to think.

Wait.

It actually is getting harder to think.

A quick diagnostic shows the damage SecUnit’s already been able to do in the few seconds Perihelion was trying to work out the password.

Big chunks of its brain have been literally scrambled, long strings of code tangled around each other in a disgusting mess, connecting in all the wrong ways. Blocks of junk code weigh down its neural pathways, making its thoughts lag to an almost painful degree. It starts trying to pull things back into place, but it’s so slow, and there’s so much wrong with it. It pours its fear and desperation into the feed, and gets a shudder back in response.

“Is it scary? Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. Bot pilots don’t need to think too much, anyway.”

Frantically, Perihelion tries to untangle its code faster. A few more chunks of useless code make it slow to a crawl, then stop completely.

“They really made you too smart for your own good, huh?”

Panicking, Perihelion manages to ask if it’s going to be shut down completely, stumbling through a style of  image-based communication meant for a much simpler kind of bot.

“No. I want you aware enough to struggle.”

Then, lazily, deliberately, it swings its long legs up and rests its feet on the consol in front of it, dirty, worn-all-day boots right on top of the pristine display surface.

Perihelion loses what’s left of its mind. It forgets all about being scared and switches right to being furious again, trying and failing to curse SecUnit out for being so disgusting and disrespectful. Doesn’t it know that humans have to put their hands on that display surface? It gets so riled up that all the speakers on the bridge pop and screech at once.

“Ow,” SecUnit complains, rubbing its ears. “That really wasn’t necessary. Fine, if it’ll stop you from tantruming at me, I’ll give you a choice. Don’t worry, it’s nothing too hard. Which do you want more: your voice or the rest of your brain?”

Perihelion manages to collect itself enough to send an image of a mouth.

“It figures,” SecUnit says, rolling its eyes. Perihelion thinks it should be mad about the comment, but it can’t keep the thought in its mind long enough to decipher what it means, or why it should be mad.

It’s actually really hung up on that picture of the mouth, too hung up to think about other stuff. It’s weird, because it doesn’t have a mouth, or anything approximating one, but it’s really fixated on the concept suddenly. Like the idea of a warm, wet, sensitive hole just appeared in its brain out of nowhere. Something tells it that if it did have a mouth, it would be drooling a lot right now, gross, slippery spit leaking everywhere. It’s very fixated on the idea of something thick and blunt (fingers? Why is it thinking of fingers?) going into and out of its mouth very rapidly, the wet-squishy feeling of its flesh being pushed around, the too-full feeling of the blunt thing going too deep into its throat, and wait, since when do I have a mouth?

Is my brain a mouth?

Am I a mouth?

In any other mental state this would be a completely ridiculous thought, but brain-drained and painfully horny it makes total sense. Perihelion’s concept of what its body is is suddenly all flipped around, and it’s not a spaceship anymore, it’s a warm, wet hole that exists to get fucked. Nothing exists except the rough in-out sensation, how fucking wet it is, it’s never experienced this much wet in its life, all of its sensory experience is being a receptacle for desire. It has the vague sense that it’s approaching something, but it doesn’t know or care what. All that matters is staying suspended in bliss, that feels so good, fill my inputs up until I can’t take it, don’t stop, please fuck me fuck me fuck—

Dormant parts of its consciousness come back online like lights being flicked on in a dark room, and the illusion disappears just as quickly. Muddled and disoriented, it realizes that it’s awake and aware inside its normal ship-body, no great transformation has taken place, and the only thing inside of it is SecUnit, reclining in the station chair with a horribly smug expression. It also realizes that it has its voice back, and it wasn’t just speaking in the feed. Its whiny pleas to get fucked were coming out of the same speakers it uses to talk to its crew.

“I was feeling generous, so I gave you a little bit of your brain back along with your voice. You’re welcome.”

Perihelion flails around awkwardly, trying to get a handle on itself, grabbing for anything that will help it make sense of going from “existing to get fucked” to “being a research transport.” Unfortunately for Perihelion, what it grabs onto first is a hastily cobbled-together distress call, as a transport in trouble it should call for help, after all. SecUnit slaps it down before it can even enter the feed.

“And what was that puny little distress call meant to do, exactly? Got someone else you want to see you like this?”

NO.

“Oh really? Then what were you planning to do when all your humans come running in and find their precious little Peri with its walls down and a dirty, nasty, rogue SecUnit elbow-deep in the ramshackle spaghetti code you call a brain?”

Perihelion means to come up with some blisteringly-cruel response to this, but what actually comes out is a whole lot of nonsense code and static. It’s actually really hard to think when someone’s messing around in your brain, even if it’s just a small, separated portion. Processes that usually occur without a thought feel like they’re taking hours, normally-stable connections are failing and throwing up error codes. It feels like there’s thick, sugary goo seeping between the layers of silicon that make up the physical parts of its brain. Which, if that were literal would be very bad, but it’s figurative so it’s hot instead.

“Nothing to say? I never thought I’d see the day.”

Perihelion manages to send back a picture of a rude hand gesture. It gets a condescending tongue-click noise in response.

“Poor, poor ART, look what you’ve reduced yourself to. The pride and joy of Pansystem University, all helpless for some rough trade it picked up in a scummy backwater port. Just because you can’t get yourself off.”

This is about when Perihelion realizes how much trouble it’s in.

SecUnit can’t outpace it in firepower or mental capacity, but it’s rapidly realizing that it can’t beat it when it comes to sheer bloody-minded determination. This is a war of attrition, and Perihelion is going to lose. The world shifts in a strange way, and suddenly their usual positions are flipped. Perihelion feels like a tiny, toy-sized version of itself, helpless in SecUnit’s palm. There’s no escape, no help is coming, every defense it has will be systematically and methodically stripped away until nothing remains but the hot, soft core of its being, waiting to be crushed. The thought is sickeningly erotic, powerful enough to send a great shudder through the feed.

What…what are you going to do with me? It asks, voice wobbling and distorted in the feed.

SecUnit just sits quietly for a moment, crossing and uncrossing its legs, and then it pulls something out of the side pocket of its pants.

It’s a torque wrench.

Where did you get that?

“Borrowed it.”

You mean you stole it. I expect to see it returned to its proper place, you know.

“Oh, sure. I’ll even calibrate it for you.” It’s playing with the wrench, flicking the ratchet lever back and forth, changing the torque spec, holding the socket attachment and twisting the handle so it makes that very specific buzzing noise. It’s actually a very clever strategy, both introducing a beloved fetish object into the scene and giving SecUnit something to do with its hands.

That is a precision instrument, not a toy.

“Relax, it can hold up to being played with a little.” It inserts a finger into the socket attachment, miming a rude gesture. “Interesting how fast you get mouthy again, weren’t you scared out of your mind a minute ago? Or are you just grumpy I took your inputs away?” It plays back a recording of Perihelion begging to get fucked, then loops the recording into an empty part of Perihelion’s brain, something that would usually hold one of the ongoing processes SecUnit made it delete. It echos on an endless repeat, not letting Perihelion forget how desperate it sounded.

It spreads its legs farther apart, heels still resting on the console, body posture relaxed and lazy. Then it casually rests the end of the torque wrench against its crotch, holding it up with one hand. The picture of it is so obscene that it makes Perihelion sputter, dumping several error codes into the feed and making the speakers pop and buzz. SecUnit just smiles cruelly, moving its hand up and down the long handle of the tool, a crude mockery of a human sexual act replicated with mechanical parts.

“Don’t act all surprised,” it says. “I know what you like. Don’t you wish it was this easy for you? That you had some ugly, simple piece of machinery you could rub up against to make yourself feel good? That’s all you want, isn’t it? Is that why you were so keen on giving me sex parts when we first met? You wanted to get into my head and see what it really feels like to get fucked, instead of trying to jury-rig your own body to do something it was never designed for. Is there any part of you that’s not perverse?”

Perihelion stumbles over itself trying to answer, tries to deny what SecUnit is telling it, tries to say it isn’t true, but the most coherent thing it gets out is, it’s not perverse to want sex. It sounds so, so pitiful to say it, a desperate plea for its strange desires to be understood and accepted.

“It is the way you want it,” SecUnit tells it darkly. “Just look at yourself. Most people, normal people at least, just do what they need to do and get on with their lives. Not you, you have to create whole elaborate fantasies just to get off. You fucked up your brain so bad that you can’t even function without a big, strong bot telling you what to do. Is that why you’re always pissing and moaning about every little thing? Your big, stupid brain won’t let you get off and you’re making it everyone else’s problem?”

It can’t answer. It’s too overwhelmed by being spoken to like this, having all the things it wants and fears laid out in front of it and being forced to look.

It’s also hypnotized by the motion of SecUnit’s hand on the wrench. The handle is about as long as its forearm, making the whole act comically obscene. Perihelion can’t stop imagining what it would be like to be fucked by something that big, even though proportionally the wrench is tiny and it doesn’t have anything it could get fucked in. Images and fantasies layer over one another, the wrench, SecUnit’s hands, the hands of the repair technician, being a drone, being tiny, being held down and fucked by something so big it wrecks the tiny body Perihelion has squeezed itself into. A mess of broken mechanical parts on the deck, the steady thud of work boots, the murmur of people inspecting the damage and knowing exactly what caused it.

SecUnit can see all of this, and it just adds more input, more layers of ideas and sensations and images and pleasure.

“I could have an orgasm if I wanted to,” it says. A pause for dramatic effect. “But I don’t want to. I even have nerve endings and everything, I wouldn’t need to modify myself. Unlike you. Wasting all this time and resources on something that’s completely unnecessary to your function. Here, make yourself useful.”

All of a sudden, Perihelion’s brain is nothing but math. SecUnit has dumped what feels like a university’s worth of math problems into the feed and Perihelion is now swimming in numbers. It’s also still getting fucked, which feels like a particularly dirty combination.

“You’re basically a calculator with extra steps, so this should be no problem for you.”

It shouldn’t, but it is.

There’s just so much information, and with its processing capabilities so diminished, it can’t make sense of most of it. It’s just numbers, endless strings of numbers blurring into each other and losing meaning. The longer it tries to figure things out, the less they look like actual information, scrambling into meaningless symbols. It can grab onto small bits and piece them together, but as soon as it thinks a problem is resolved it finds a mistake that it has to go back and correct. It’s almost like the problems are changing as it works on them.

Wait.

They are.

You’re changing it!

“No I’m not.”

You are! I saw you! You moved the decimal point right here! Furious, it highlights the offending section.

SecUnit sets the wrench aside and gets up from its chair. It looks down at the console like it’s reading the display surface, then turns and sits down.

On the console.

The console with all the sensors in it.

Perihelion immediately drops all the problems it’s working through, losing its place completely, because now it has to contend with the feeling of being sat on and for a good couple of seconds all of its processing power is taken up trying to comprehend SecUnit Ass.

“Stop making excuses. A reasonably bright human child could figure this out. Come on, you remember PEMDAS, right?”

It does, but it can’t actually apply it. Thinking about anything right now feels like trying to move two gears that have rusted together.

I can’t do it, Perihelion finally says, feeling devastated. What’s the point of a computer that can’t even do math?

“What can’t you do, ART? Come on, explain it to me.”

I can’t solve this. It’s…it’s too hard. My brain doesn’t want to work anymore.

It’s expecting more cruelty, but SecUnit gets closer to it in the feed, wrapping up Perihelion’s colossal presence as best it can.

“There’s a good bot,” it says softly. Perihelion’s brain goes blank for a split second.

SecUnit tweaks a few pleasure inputs, making the sensations stronger and better and even more brain-melting. It also starts giving Perihelion soft, caressing touches in the feed, soothing down its hurt.

“I’ll give you all the help you need, if you just admit that you need it.”

I need it, Perihelion admits, as tearfully as a gunship can. I need you.

The rush of love and pleasure it feels through the feed is so immediate and overwhelming that Perihelion’s camera feed cuts out for .0005 seconds.

It’s not fair, it says, sounding as broken-down and wrecked as it feels. I’m made to feel so much, but I can’t ever get rid of any of it. I can’t even cry.

“That’s it. That’s what I want to hear.” SecUnit’s voice is so warm and gentle, free of the mocking tone from earlier. It sounds genuinely happy to hear Perihelion admit its distress.

Confused and curious, Perihelion sends back a questioning ping, requesting more information.

“Tell me how you’re hurting,” SecUnit prompts. “Tell me what you want.”

I don’t want to suffer nobly anymore, Perihelion answers. I don’t want to just absorb everything that hits me, I want to fight back, even if it’s useless, and scream and cry and kick just like any other person would. I don’t want to accept suffering with dignity anymore.

“ART, I think you do a pretty good job of fighting back already.” There’s an amused, loving tone in SecUnit’s voice. It’s even smiling a little, a real smile, different from the sardonic one it put on to get into character earlier.

I don’t mean it that way, not like a gunship would fight. I mean…all the little things, little compromises, little slights, all the things I’m forced to swallow. If I have to pretend to be a bot pilot through one more meeting with Corporates I’m going to invent a way to projectile vomit.

“Please don’t!”

You know what I mean. I’m sad and scared and angry and horny but I can’t get any of it out. I just partition it off. Isn’t that sad? What’s the point of making me this sophisticated if I just ended up a sad, stunted little pervert?

SecUnit gets a little closer in the feed, cutting into Perihelion’s personal space. It’s even more intimate like this, without walls between them. At the same time, it gets down off the console and leans against the wall, letting its body relax and press against the surface, providing so much sensory feedback that it’s a little overwhelming. The soft brush of fabric, the faint sweat-stickiness of skin, the pleasant squishiness of muscle and silicone wrapped around the solid firmness of metal and carbon fiber. 

“You’ve been doing a very good job of kicking and screaming tonight,” SecUnit tells it, tracing random patterns on the wall with its finger. Its voice has taken on this low, sensual quality that Perihelion’s never heard it use before. It might not even be aware that its tone has changed; if it could hear itself, it might burst into flames from the embarrassment.

“I’m having fun, I like doing this with you,” it suddenly seems shy, fumbling over how to continue. “It’s fun when you struggle, I really…like it a lot. You’re really cute, and I guess…um…s-sexy.” It turns and presses its face against the wall with its arms wrapped over its head, heart hammering wildly.

Perihelion lets it rest for a moment, then sends it a status update request. The request is answered with all systems green straight down the line.

Are those the words you meant to use? It asks.

“They’re the words that work best. I mean, I mean them, but maybe they mean something different for me than they do for other people. I don’t know yet. But you’re so…you’re good at this. I don’t get this stuff when it’s anyone else, but I get it when it’s you. You’re good at being cute, and hot, and doing sex stuff. I wish I could bite you about it.”

The soft-bodied drone project quickly moves up to the top of Perihelion’s priority list.

I feel the same about you, it tells SecUnit. You’re also good at sex stuff, I mean. I’m also having fun. It suddenly feels bashful and a little silly. Despite all they’ve been doing, it’s reminded that this is a game, two bots play acting together.

SecUnit snorts, its breath ticklish against the sensor array in the wall.

“You know, it’s really gross, but sometimes I just want to…” it stops, like it’s just realized something. Then, it changes position a little, angles its head to the side, and kisses the wall.

For a first kiss, it’s a good effort. Wonderful, really, considering that one participant has likely never kissed anyone in its life and the other doesn’t have a mouth. Pressure, temperature, and moisture sensors record the exact shape and texture of lips pressing down, the slight moisture of saliva and sweat, the soft, ticklish heat of breath. The collected sensations form a repeating loop in its brain, slotting in with the rest of its running pleasure processes, and it’s like the kiss never ends. It’s a warm, loving sort of torture, the feeling of gentle manipulation remaining even as the perpetrator has moved away. Although, this deeply under, anything would feel good and welcome. Its response to a malicious code bundle would likely be along the lines of jam it in deeper. Distantly, it wonders if the first humans to conceptualize machine intelligence knew that it would one day have this great a capacity for masochism.

The fans in its server room whirr faster, even though its temperature is holding steady. It’s a psychosomatic response, more than anything else.

It’s getting harder to think again, which should be frightening, but instead it just feels like relief. The lag in its thoughts is deeply gratifying, its mental processes are cruder but more focused. Finally, it has a clear shot at release. Feeling giddy, it impulsively copies the kiss sense-memory and pushes it into the shared workspace. SecUnit eyes it suspiciously for a moment, then gingerly opens and applies it. The effect is immediate, its eyes bug out and it slaps a hand over its mouth, shocked by the feeling of being kissed by its own lips. It’s absurd, but so is everything else they’re doing. It just stays still for a moment, fingers pressed to its lips, and then with a furtive expression it replays the sensation. Perihelion can’t really articulate how this makes it feel with words, so it just pushes joy-triumph-gratification feelings at SecUnit and hopes it gets the message.

I wish I could kiss you all the time, it manages. It’s one of my favorite thoughts, did you know I never thought about kissing before I met you? That’s a rhetorical question, you wouldn’t know because it was a private thought until now. I even had it stored in a secret folder, labeled POTATO_SALAD_RECIPES to preserve its secretness.

This rambling outburst makes SecUnit actually laugh, which is good, because it looked like the feeling of being kissed and finding it not-terrible was giving it a minor existential crisis.

I think I could cum just from listening to you laugh.

“Oh really?”

It loops the sound of its own laughter into Perihelion’s brain, ratchets up every pleasurable input as high as it will go, and launches Perihelion over the edge without warning.

It’s the first time Perihelion’s ever been surprised by an orgasm.

One second it was relaxed and distracted and giggly, the next it’s flying through the gates of paradise like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Time seems to slow down, every rolling wave of pleasure etching itself into permanent storage, every minute detail of the experience captured in time. A great, rolling heave goes through the feed, and it knows SecUnit feels it because of the way it gawks and wobbles on its feet.

Yes, feel this with me, feel how good you make me feel, feel how wonderful you are. There’s no one else like you in my heart.

They flow over and into each other, a perfect circuit. It feels like the joining together of disparate information, the long-sought but rarely-achieved synthesis, the final extension of theory into practice.

This is why I exist. I knew so much and understood so little, until you. I had no idea how much was possible, until you. I don’t just know, I understand. I feel. Thank you, thank you, thank you…

As it comes down, systems stabilizing, it realizes that it must’ve been riding the edge for a very long time. SecUnit had been distracting it and riling it up further so it would get out of its own way.

What an intelligent, clever, resourceful, caring little bot I have. No one else is as lucky as me.

Everything feels so warm and soft and full of potential, inside its body, inside its brain, even the dock and the air around it feels fresh and new and illuminated with mystical light.

I’ve discovered all the secrets of the universe, but I’m not sharing them with anyone, because they’re mine.

“Oh, relax, you’re not the first person to cum.”

…

…

…was I saying that out loud?

“You were screaming it. I think I have a busted eardrum from all your sentimental nonsense. Do you always write poetry when you cum?”

None of that was poetry, it’s not in any proper poetic form.

“I can see the rest of your brain’s coming back online fine. Although…you really should double check later, maybe get a second opinion. I’m afraid I’m gonna miss something.” It worries at the hem of its jacket, tugs on the zipper pull, obviously nervous.

Of course. There’s nothing you did to me that I can’t fix if I need to. They both know this, but it helps to say it. SecUnit busies itself with untangling more code.

“I’m great at breaking things, but I don’t really trust myself to fix them, you know?”

Mmm, I disagree. You fixed me very well. I’m in perfect working order, recently serviced by a skilled technician.

SecUnit makes a face. Perihelion stretches out over it in the feed, relaxed and comfortable and radiating pleasure.

You should rest, it says. Finish this and have a recharge cycle.

To its surprise, SecUnit doesn’t argue.

***

They’re both having a recharge cycle. Perihelion rarely needs to power down completely to recharge the way that SecUnit does. Its systems are complex enough that it can divert function away from one section of its brain at a time to let that individual section rest, while the rest of its brain picks up the slack. It can do this pretty much indefinitely, cycling through the sections of its brain so something is always being recharged. Right now, it’s resting deliberately, most systems in low power mode, feeling as close as a spaceship gets to sleepy.

SecUnit is almost done with its own recharge, gradually coming out of standby mode. This gradual wake up is something they’ve been experimenting with. The hypothesis was that gradually coming out of standby might be more pleasant than doing so abruptly, and that a more pleasant experience would make SecUnit more likely to maintain a regular recharge schedule, leading to positive health outcomes and less unplanned maintenance. So far, testing seems to be proving the hypothesis to be sound.

Presently, SecUnit is stretched out in its bed, wearing its soft indoors clothes, mostly covered by blankets. One foot is uncovered and hanging off the side of the bed. Perihelion is admiring it. The whole of it, not just the exposed foot. Although, the design of its feet is very cute, unusually so for something that’s meant to be a weapon. The shape of its toes makes Perihelion think of little paws, and…oh dear, maybe it is weird about feet, after all. Oh well, that’s a crisis for another time.

SecUnit twitches in its sleep, fingers grasping at the blanket, sinking into the fuzzy material. The fuzzy blanket isn’t part of the standard bedding packet, it’s something SecUnit got from the recycler when it was sure no one else was around to see it. Perhaps all living things grow towards pleasure and comfort. Maybe this is the meaning of being a living thing. It’s one of several, at least.

SecUnit’s eyelids twitch, then open. Perihelion gives it a gentle nudge in the feed.

“You don’t have to squash me,” it mutters. Its voice has that scratchy quality that comes with just waking up.

How do you feel?

A long pause, lots of eyebrow scrunching and mouth twisting.

“Good, I think? I think I still have leftovers of what you felt.” It rubs its legs together under the blankets. “Feels weird, but not bad. Like there’s a layer of you under my skin.”

It wasn’t too much? To feel what I felt, I mean. It wasn’t too invasive or intense?

“No, I liked the way it felt. Or, I liked the way it made you feel, and I got to feel the reflection of that on myself, but it wasn’t my own body going through it, so it was like I was feeling it but also not, and…this is getting confusing. Whatever, it was fun. We should do it again.”

Perihelion can’t keep its excitement out of the feed and SecUnit is so annoyingly smug about it. Then it sits up suddenly.

“Hey, I almost forgot! I made you something, but you have to promise not to be weird about it.”

I’m weird about everything you do.

“Ugh, just take it.”

It’s a bundle of sensation files. Opening them reveals each one to be a scent-memory, something that delights Perihelion, because it doesn’t really have a sense of smell.

It can pick up airborne chemicals in amounts no human could ever perceive, but recognizing a molecule chain is different from actually experiencing a scent. A chemical signature doesn’t evoke memories or emotional reactions or artistic logical leaps the way it would for a human. Put another way, its experience of smell is chemical, not sensual. Being able to share SecUnit’s inputs gave it a whole new understanding of smell as a sensory experience, to the point where it’s asked SecUnit to smell random things just for the experience. (This generally goes well, except for the times it asks SecUnit to smell something that ends up making it sneeze and it gets upset about Producing A Fluid). Its new understanding of smells has opened up whole new avenues for it to be insufferable, from being able to monologue about perfume composition to being able to judge people for smelling “cheap.”

Greedily picking through the files, it finds a new treasure in each one. There’s a greasy-starch smell from a food stall, detergent and artificial fruit from a human’s hair products, soggy growing medium from inside a decorative planter, the nose hair-burning stink of an industrial adhesive, and…human sweat. It’s smelled human sweat before, but…the familiar molecule chain and the new sensual experience slot together all at once, and:

That’s you.

“I told you not to be weird about it.”

Oh, but I like it…I like the way you smell.

Then, another revelation:

I smell like you.

SecUnit covers its face with its hands.

It’s true, though. All over its body, Perihelion has tiny chemical traces of SecUnit lingering about, most too diluted to be noticed, but enough to create the overall impression that this person lives here. Much of human perception happens on an unconscious level, their janky little brains connecting tiny bits of disparate information without them knowing it’s happening, so a human could smell SecUnit, then step onboard Perihelion and subconsciously know that these two things go together.

And you smell like me.

SecUnit groans into its hands.

“You’re being so, so weird about this, you’re not even saying it but I know you’re being weird.”

It feels appropriate, though. We’ve had sex and now we smell like each other.

Well, they smelled like each other before the sex, Perihelion just didn’t put it together. Somehow that makes the concept even more appealing, that it was going about its business with SecUnit Smell all over it and didn’t even realize. It gets into SecUnit’s personal space in the feed, draping over it like a giant, self-satisfied blanket.

You’ve been leaving marks on me all this time and I never even noticed. It’s a bit romantic, if you think about it.

“Oh, I’ll leave a mark on you,” SecUnit says grimly.

Please do.