Arcade♀Witch

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“There was no problem with them,” Iris bites, slightly harsher than he means to. Humans always like to assume that technology malfunctioned, jump to that conclusion without ever thinking of anything else. Love blaming others for impossible to predict mistakes, to wash their hands clean of any responsability.

Typical.

“They’ve probably just moved on already.” Iris glances into the distance, zooming in until his vision can’t reach any further. “Too late.”

“Awww,” Lillium pouts. He leans against one of the abandoned buildings, caked with dust, the metal on the walls rusting slowly but surely.

Iris can’t help but imagine his own body rusting like that, colour leaching from his synthetic skin and fading to a repulsive reddish brown. Can’t help but fear it. It’s something that sends a shiver of electricity down his metallic spine, that reminds of how painfully different he is from the human investigators.

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“Iris met Lillium only a few hours before their mission. Apparently, Lillium’s regular android partner, Heather, had a malfunction and was resting in the repair room. He got called in as a replacement, since he didn’t really have any other duties.

“Hey.” Lillium smiled at him, tipped an imaginary hat in greeting. “You’re Iris, right? I’m Lillium.”

It isn’t exactly uncommon for humans to have android names - flowers, perfumes, animals - but it still shocked him slightly. And well; Lillium is beautiful. His hair is pink and bright, blond roots barely showing in some select places. His eyes shine, even when there is no light, a spark that makes Iris catch his breath, even though he doesn’t actually need to breathe. Lillium is tall, gorgeous, and flirty. If Iris hadn’t been told he was a human, he would have immediately taken him for a companion bot.

“Yeah.” Iris didn’t meet his gaze. “I’m your partner for this trip.”

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“I got lucky, apparently.” Lillium winked at him. “It’s pretty shit that Heather’s in recovery, but I bet Begonia is nursing her back to health right now.”

Iris recoiled at that. “Begonia?”

Lillium waggled his eyebrows. “If you ask me, those two are a bit too close for operator and android investigator.” His suggestive smirk softened, turned into something resembling a supportive smike. “They’re cute together. Heather’s good for her.”

Iris just stood there, frozen, feeling so lost that he might as well have broken his internal compass. If he was human, he would have been sweating with nervousness.

He tried to imagine a world in which a human would say an android was ‘good’ for a human. Tried to imagine a world in which they could date and it would be considered ‘cute’. Tried to imagine what the fuck Lillium White was on about. He was terrifying, because he was different.

This is similar to that first meeting. Similar to the sense of losing his footing, of not knowing where to stand. Iris doesn’t know if he can trust Lillium, if he can truly believe what he’s saying.

But he sounds so genuine. He’s mysterious, alright, and he’s a human investigator. They all come with their share of secrets, as part of the job description. And yet, Lillium manages to make himself seem incredibly kind, so willing to listen, so easy to tease and love.

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“Never seen outside surveillance bots before?” Iris can’t help but smile at his reaction, the way his eyes widen and he gazes at the small machines in wonder.

Not all of them are exactly the same, because they get designed with their specific purpose in mind. Mostly the aim is to hide them properly and yet still give them a bigger battery life plus being able to move long distances on their own through remote control. For the burnt forest area, their current location, bots are well. Unfairly cute, if Iris says so himself.

The two giddily floating in mid-air are small, round grey metallic balls about twice the size of Iris’s fists. They have two green lights on their front to record and to display their current battery percentage.  To top it all of, there are cute, metallic green leaves on their ‘heads’, disguising them perfectly.

 As soon as they see Iris, one of them runs at him, beeping loudly and whirring in panic. Iris shushes it gently, pressing his finger to his lips, and pats it on the leaf.

The bot’s light blinks a few times. “Report: pleasant.”

 “I love them,” Lillium whispers.

 Iris laughs, patting the bot a few more times before turning around. “They feel threatened if humans approach without warning.”

 “They seem to like you just fine,” Lillium tells him, smirking and pointing towards his side, where the small bot has attached itself to him, pushing and whirring. It keeps sending him almost all of the footage from the past few months. If he doesn’t stop, Iris’s gonna have to shut down his servers, jesus.

 “They like company,” Iris murmurs, setting his hand on the enthusiastic bot. He rubs fondly, nodding and humming to the messages it keeps sending him, things like human activity 23 hours earlier and storm! storm! storm! wind 50 km/h! storm!. “It’s lonely.”

 For some reason, he doesn’t feel like he’s just talking about the surveillance bots, right now.

 “I bet.” Lillium bites his lower lip. He crosses his arms over his chest, bites his lip. It seems like he’s hesitating, for a second, before a smug smirk spreads on his face. “So...are you their mommy?”

 Iris snaps his head around. If he could blush, he would be. “No!”

 “I don’t know, sweetheart.” Lillium waggles his eyebrows. “It wants you to cradle it and love it.”

 “Oh, shut up!” Iris bites, too frustrated to argue. The worst thing is that Lillium is, well, sort of right. Bots like these get easily attached to androids, enough that they can follow them around. It used to happen to him around the precinct, to the point where Begonia would have to program them to leave him alone.

 “You have adorable children, Iris,” Lillium teases him. He laughs. “Hey, is it alright if I touch them?”

Iris says, “Okay,” and gently pushes one of the bots in Lillium’s direction.

He better not fuck up.

Lillium pats the bot cautiously, his tongue sticking out in concentration.

The bot beeps. “Report: satisfying.”

Another pat.

“Report: your affinity with this bot has increased.”

Lillium covers his mouth with his hand.  He whispers. “I’m in heaven.” He turns to Iris with the biggest puppy-dog eyes he’s ever seen. “Can we keep them? Please?”

Iris can’t help it: he laughs.