take the path less traveled

"So, humans call you Pitt-"

It takes a considerable effort to crank open the observatory window. When it finally pops, a gust of heat rushes in and your coworker's face crumples harder. It's a shame he can't taste the air; the dunes ache of sugar, earthy and somehow green, like the world underneath the sand is pure sugarcane. If the planet could fit into your jaws, it'd dribble juice down your chin.

"But what do other droids call you?"

"Androids."

"Sorry. What do other androids call you?"

He chews on this for a moment, working his jaw side to side in thought. Finally, he just sighs and says: "I prefer my serial number."

"Really? Just a number?"

"It's not just-- Some of us have complicated relationships to our bodies." His fingers tap on the keys of his laptop absentmindedly, not firm enough to actually type, but just make the sound of skin against keyboard. His eyes, catching the light as they flit around, search the space around him for the words he wants to say. The sun has just begun to set on the horizon, just the bottom lip hitting the distant sands. The world is impossibly bright, the mica rich soil glimmering like gold, rippling like waves. A warm wind hits your cheeks and you shiver as an involuntary reflex.

"This body is a mass made model. I'm a chip and code that was installed in it. I could remove myself and place myself into another body and I would be entirely the same," he continues. "I have friends who've changed bodies. They prefer real names. They don't want to be permanently associated with their form because they don't feel as if it's them. Joy will be Joy in whatever model they inhabit; Hollis will be Hollis."

He rubs at his neck, hand placed over his high collar. You remember the tattoo curled there, ink dragged into artificial skin. It's not like your own flesh, you remember. It doesn't heal on it's own. The motion moves his shirt down just enough to expose the margin of his machinery, this silvered line that perimeters his throat. When he turns away from his screen, he catches you staring and gives you the faintest of smile. It's alright, it says. You can look.

When he speaks again, the expression faces into something more forlorn and solemn.

"I used to feel that way as well, but I altered this body. I made it my own. I made it my home." The light catches against the metal ring around his throat. It reminds you of an articulated doll, with grooves in the spots where you can position them. It also hits you that it's entirely for show, just a way to differentiate his kind from yours. "This body is mine. I don't want to be separated from it. I will be the only one to inhabit this body. This body will be the only one I own. We are intertwined. I am its serial number."

He suddenly blinks hard, as if he's gotten sand in his eyes, then turns to you with another canned placid smile. "I'm sorry. I don't know how comprehensible that is from a human perspective."

You push off of the wall and punch his arm when you pass.

"Dude, more that you think," you say, because you can't manage anything deeper than that. Of course you understand. You've been bombarded with beauty since you were a child, adverts on how you would never fit into it, how women like you would never be wanted unless they chased and changed their whole life. Years of your life and more money than you could imagine have been poured into your looks, your clothing, your body, and you're farther away from beautiful than you ever have been.

But how could he ever understand that?

"Wanna beer?" you offer over your shoulder, then pausing. "Oh. Yeah."

"I appreciate the thought," he says back.

When you return, your bottle is in one hand, a can of his fuel in the other. Pitt perks when he sees it.

"Got some Hemo, 'case you were-" you shrug, tossing it in a high arch. He barely catches it and you have to hold yourself back from laughing. High tech android can't catch. "I dunno. It's hot. Don't want you burning through a fuck ton of it keeping yourself cool."

"You didn't have to do that," he says. It was kept room temperature; you'll have to ask if it would be better in the fridge. It's filled with food and drink for you, but you can move things around if it's more pleasurable to consume that stuff cold.

"So, what is it?" you say, perching your ass on the window sill. One leg dangles outside and you consider letting your shoe drop just to watch it tumble the thousands of feet to the sand. However, you really don't want to walk down that many steps.

"My serial?" He cracks the can. "00042."

"Ah, Douglas Adams."

"I'm sorry?"

You laugh again, eyeing him up and down. His sleeves have been pushed up his arms, the heat of the day getting to him, and you almost tell him that he can strip if he wants; you're in your night clothes -a thin tank and loose shorts- it would only be fair for him to strip too.

"Come on, that's totally not the first time you heard that." The beer fizzles when you take a pull from the bottle. "The author? Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy?"

The android shakes his head. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"42!" you say, as if it explains everything. "In the book, someone is looking for the answer to question of life and the universe and this supercomputer pops out the answer '42.'"

When Pitt blinks, you know its a purposeful choice.

"That's absolute nonsense."

"Yeah, that's, like, the point," you say. "It's ridiculous to think there's an answer to the question of life. Life just kind of is."

He finally brings the can up to his lips and drinks, but his eyes don't leave you. There's a moment they flicker down, and you almost believe he's checking you out, glancing at your chest like a human man would. It's been a while since someone's looked at you like that, so you must be imagining it.

You're glad the quarters are separated. A nice jerk off would get you back to normal.

"It's my favorite number," you say after a while.

"Really?" he says. "I wouldn't expect you to have a favorite."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure." This time his smile hides behind his can. "It just surprised me."

You both watch the distance until the sun sinks and the night casts itself into the light of millions of stars, thrown across the sky like glitter of a child's school project. The night air has gotten cool, plummeting towards cold.

"You okay if I go to bed, Four Two?" you say as you step out of the window.

His head whips towards you in surprise.

"Yeah. Of course," he says. "You should eat first."

"Yeah, okay. Sure."

Sukuna's lip curls, and a disparaging hiss of air slips out from behind it—mocking and disgusted all at once. He kicks the sodden magazine out of his path as he trudges back towards his apartment, and it lands a couple feet away with a sad, squelching plop. The magazine's pages are so thoroughly soaked thanks to the afternoon's downpour it's a miracle the headline on the trashy rag's cover page is even still legible, he thinks as he steps over it. He makes it only a few more steps before he pauses.

Yuuji's really been on his case lately about picking up garbage that the two of them see when they're walking about. Learned about it in school recently, and latched onto the lesson with all his well-intentioned might. Despite the fact that he dropped the kid off at home twenty minutes prior, it's almost like he can hear his nephew's voice chastising him.

Litter makes the earth sad, jichan!

Sukuna doesn't really give a shit about the earth, or its feelings. Or about trash someone was too fucking lazy to throw away properly.

He does, unfortunately, care about the criticism of a six-year-old—not that he would ever admit that out loud. With an aggrieved huff, he stomps back over to the soggy magazine, plucks it up from the ground with the tips of his fingers, and carries it all the way home where he can properly dispose of it in his apartment's recycling bin.

He (obviously) vows never to breathe a word of his good deed to anyone, lest it harm his reputation.

“When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me – it still sometimes happens – and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous – not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… That pure chance could be so generous and so kind… That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time… That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful… The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived.

That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday.