Future Love

"Rabbit wait!  What are you doing?"

"Doing what I'm told.  She said to leave, so I am."

"Rabbit stop.  You are your own person, you don't have to do what she tells you!"

Rabbit stopped dead, Steve almost ran into him from the suddenness of it, giving him an odd look.  After a long moment, the automaton turned around.  There was oil in his overly bright optics, and he couldn't quite meet Steve's gaze.

"Yes, Steve.  I do gotta do what she says.  Didn't ya hear her back there!  I ain't allowed ta be hap-hap-happy unless she says I can be.  An' iffn I stay, you ain't gotta job.  So I gotta go.  'Cause if I wanna be a person f'm'self, I can't be around her!  An' ya need this job.  So wif me gone, ya can keep it.  We'll bof be betta wifout me around here."

Steve grabbed his wrist, pulling him close and into a hug.

"In."  Steve did as bid, and sat at attention across from her.

"Do you plan to continue your affair with my brother?"  Steve grit his teeth.

"I intend to continue my affections with him, yes."

"Then you're fired."

"So be it."

Rabbit's room was the one he was most comfortable in.  So that's where they were.  Snuggled tight in the dark, simply existing.  They knew everything would become far more complicated in the morning.

"I know.  I don't either.  But we have to at some point."

"Why?  Let's just go.  Just run away.  Just leave."

"You know we can't do that."

"I know."

"Delilah's probably going to give me an ultimatum.  Break it off with you, or I'm fired."

"You so sure she will?"

"I am."

"What are ya gonna to do?"

"I guess I'm going to be fired."

"Oh god Steve no!"

"It sucks, yeah.  But she can't have her way.  She's controlled you long enough.  You've said yourself.  You're not a toy, you're a real person.  You have your own ideas of what you want for you life.  She isn't your owner.  She isn't your master.  She's your sister.  And she can't run your life."

Rabbit played with Steve's fingers, thinking.

"I ain't gonna let her fire you.  Iffn she does, come find me.  I won't let her."

"Rabbit, you don't have t-"

"And then they- hey, you a'right?"

"Huh?  Oh, yeah."

"Yer really quiet."

"I'm enjoying listening to you talk."

Rabbit stopped, venting steam from his cheeks in embarrassment.  Steve stepped up to him, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Don't stop.  I like it.  You're always so quiet at the house, seeing you excited about something is nice."  Rabbit played with Steve's hands, watching their fingers before he looked up again, pecking Steve on the nose.

"You made the buzzing go away."

"What buzzing?"

"In m'head.  There's, come on.  Let's walk an' I'll explain."

Hand in hand, they moseyed down the sidewalk away from the movie theater.  There was a comfortable silence for a moment as the bright lights faded behind them.

"When I was a kid, we went t'a fair.  This man had a robutt, Honeybee.  She was beautiful, an'th' first otha robutts I had ever seen.  I was three 'r four, and thought she was like me.  That she could talk'n'walk'n'think all on her own.  I tried t'talk to her, on-only to find she weren't like me.  You put a coin inna box, and she would speak whatever was on th'punch card put inta her voice box.  Th'owner laughed, everyone but Pappy an' 'Lilah laughed.  'Stupid boy, thinking she's real.'" 

He couldn't lift his eyes from the ground under his feet.

"Then they started t'scream when they realized what that meant.  And they ran, and called me a mon-mon-... monster.  And that night, my head started t'buzz.  I couldn't really explain it, but it never went away.  Even after I was turned back on last year, it never went away."

He squeezed Steve's hand, pulling them to a stop.  Glowing eyes met brown, a smile on his copper face.

"But you kissed me back.  An' last night was..."

"Amazing."

A kiss, foreheads resting together.

"And all of a sudden, it was quiet.  My head ain't buzzin' no more.  It's calm."

"I'm glad I can do that for you."

"Me too.  Steve, I love you.  Idunno know how, or why, but-"

"You don't have to know how.  Or why.  Just that it is.  It makes you happy.  That's part of you."

"I guess it is."