Your mouth moves, but no sound escapes. Caught in the void you reach forward, take a step. You can’t move, stuck in place. Something cool wraps around your throat. It pulls you back, further from him- The metal is like ice, and you flinch, taking your eyes off his sunlight robes for only a moment. You look again, and he’s gone- and the arms wrap around you, pull you in closer, squeezing, crushing-

The door opens with a hiss- and your dream evaporates. There’s a moment you’re in your bed, groggily wondering why your alarm sounds so strange. But there’s no sunlight, the sheets are wrong.

You jolt awake, stumbling to your feet and blinking rapidly. Blurred with fitful sleep and your difficult rise into consciousness, Ramattra’s image before you is hazy, but the adrenaline soon clears him up.

“I am sorry, I did not mean to wake you.” He says- and as far as you can tell he means it. Ramattra even has the courtesy of tipping his head downwards, though you’re sure his optics are still locked on you. At least, until something else catches his attention. He turns slightly- and his focus centers completely on the empty mug on the table.

You bristle before he even moves. He reaches out, cradles the mug so delicately in his big hands. “I can bring you more, if you would like?”

You don’t answer, wrapping your hands around yourself and pursing your lips in defiance. You needed water and had indulged in a momentary whim- that’s what you tell yourself. You won’t do that when he’s here, won’t let him have any more victories like this.

Your silence still stings, but this is a high Ramattra won’t soon forget. He had expected to return to shattered glass and screaming- or worse. He knows you’re so angry with him- and it makes him ache- but… he’s elated to even have you drink the tea he made.

Instead, he tries his luck again. “We don’t have much by way of food prepared, but I can get you anything you want.” He pauses, burns your face into his optics. There’s fear and distrust in your eyes, but you’re still so beautiful and he wants so badly- “You only need to ask.”

You don’t answer.

He brings you tarkari and more tea. The curry is under-seasoned, but it does its job: making you stare at the plate with watery eyes long after Ramattra has left. Part of you is sickened. It’s a recipe you’d saved- made it once for a group of pilgrims who couldn’t make it up the mountain in a storm. It was warm. It is warm. He’s dredging up those same memories- of better times, of before.

It sickens you that it works- makes you think of nice things.

And it makes you hurt deep inside because he remembers. All the time you’ve spent thinking about him, he’s been doing the same. How long has he been parsing that recipe, that night, the memory itself? Does it repeat endlessly in his mind like he does for you?

You eat if only to silence the grumbling in your belly. When you’re done you lay down, face away from the door, and cry.

At first, you loathed his visits. With no expression, there’s still something in the way he looks at you- the soft cant of his head when he asks a question, the way his fingers twitch as he lingers, aching to do more than stand there. He may be providing food- and leaving menus to encourage your participation in your own confinement- and wishing for more, but you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction beyond your continued existence.

But the time between quickly became… long. You prowl the room like a captive tiger. Circling, inspecting the drawers in the vanity, the mirror, the bathroom- the perfectly neutral, inoffensive soaps he’s chosen for you (did he not remember the ones you had in Nepal? Can he not find them?). Then on again- the mostly empty drawers beneath the sink- out into the room, opening the drawers of the little tables. Simple clothes, deeply impersonal. He didn’t know what you would like, wasn’t confident enough in your tastes.

But soon you’re back where you started. No windows. No books, no screens. Trapped not only in Ramattra’s ship, but in your own head. Alone with the memory of him.

This continues on for what you think may be a few days. With no clocks or sky, you can’t judge the passage of time. Was he feeding you every eight hours? You can’t be sure. It feels timed, evenly spaced- or was that just the isolation of sitting in the room for hours at a time with nothing to do?

Each time you shuffle away from the door, refuse to meet his gaze. He asks some nice little questions, leaves something for you- some kind of plea for your attention. You refuse. You’ll eat and drink-- partially because you think he’ll make you eat, if you refuse, but partially just to spite him. You’ll live and you’ll make him know how you feel with every one-sided conversation.

He hides it, but you know every time you reject his bids for affection must hurt. It’s a thread to hang on to: the truth of it despite his warped kindness. He’s kidnapped you, wrought destruction on the very place you called him. You have to spite him. Whatever good in him has to be gone.

And when he enters your room off-schedule, you cover your surprise with a sneer. Immediately, you know something is wrong. The timing is incorrect, but worse- Ramattra wanders further in than normal. He usually keeps a respectful distance, this is… new. You draw your feet up, tuck your knees to your chest, squishing into a protective little ball and keep your eyes carefully trained on him.

He doesn’t try to sit on the bed with you. Instead he drops himself onto the vanity’s seat, giving you plenty of space. You blink back surprise. Ramattra doesn’t look at you. He always does, giving you expressionless pleading glances, watching your every movement in futile hope. Today, his faceplate is locked to the floor, his shoulders sagging, his vents almost simulating a sigh.

This is… different. He hasn’t sat with you since-

“When I made it to Europe, I spent most of the time walking.” You stare at him as he speaks. It’s no longer fear that drives you attention because he sounds exhausted. Every time before he’s been saccharine-sweet and longing and now he’s… “Very few offered assistance. They had not seen a Ravager in years… at least, not a functional one.” He lays his hands in his lap, lowers his gaze to look at them.

“Germany was just as receptive. I had gone there to follow rumors of a slave trading ring using unrecovered battlefields as their cover. They posed as scrap collectors and smuggled sentient omnics under pieces of their kin. I could not take the main roads in; I found out quickly that distressed humans tend to shoot their hostages. So I looked for slavers, walking through the forests of Germany.” He pauses, modulates an awkward noise, “Have you ever seen them?”

He does not look at you, but he does wait. The question is so unexpected you could not answer even if you wanted to. You were not ignorant about the treatment of omnics. If they were not safe in the shadow of a monastery, they were not safe anywhere... but somehow you did not expect Ramattra’s quest for omnic salvation to be so… blunt.

When you do not answer, he continues on.

“The paths I took were densely lined. Humans had replanted trees a century earlier and left them to grow together, unsupervised… It was quiet, green, full of life- and the spaces between were full of discarded and destroyed omnics. Mostly war units, E-54s and OR-14s. Enough were civilian models. From before the Awakening. Gone before they had a chance to live. Given why I was there at all, I wondered if perhaps they were more fortunate.”

Anger loosens your resolve. The words slip from you. “You think never having lived at all is better?”

For the first time in the whole encounter, Ramattra’s faceplate snaps to you. “For some of us.”

You sit with that and meet the black slits of his optics. The helmets he’s putting on omnics… Ramattra doesn’t get to decide that for them.. but you can’t decide it for him, either.

“There was a fox.” He finally looks away, tips his head back, the white of his faceplate slimming down to a thin slit on the sharp purple angles of his jaw. “I had been so focused on avoiding humans, I had ignored all other readings until it was in front of me. It was sleeker than the foxes at Shambali and its paws were so dark they blended into the shadows. But I could still tell one was bloodied, trapped in steel wire.

“It was caught in a snare. A barbaric one, meant to maim as much as confine so that if it freed itself, it would be too injured to hunt. It was… frantic. It knew I was no hunter, that I had not set the trap, yet it bared its teeth and hissed at me. Injured as it was, everything was a threat and it could only focus on escape. It pulled its paw futilely against the trap, then began biting at the limb.”

Ramattra trails off, the memory brought into his HUD. Blood, crimson and fresh, drips over black fur, over the brown, dried blood from previous attempts at freedom.

“Did you free it?”

“Should I have?” He asks- and you cringe away from him. He wouldn’t have… but then, you barely knew him anymore. “I had the same debate with myself. If I free the fox, it may only have a few hours of life before its wound gets infected, perhaps days before it starves. Is that freedom or suffering?”

“It might’ve recovered. You killed it and stole that chance.” You spit the words, but Ramattra does not flinch at the accusation.

Instead, he hums, tips his head as he observes you, weighs your answer. “You needn’t worry. I let it go.” You let the confusion wash over your face. It brings him some satisfaction because he explains: “Some of the omnics I found in those hidden dungeons have been locked away since the Awakening. They had hardly seen the world, barely lived. They’re wounded, or worse, naive to the many other ways they could be taken advantage of. But they may never have the chance to live if I did not help them.”

Ramattra leans forward, reaches out- fingers just barely touching the end of the bed. He’s nowhere near you, but you draw your limbs in closer anyway. “That’s why it has to be this way. To open every trap at once.”

It very quickly becomes a chore to remind yourself, a mantra you repeat in your head over and over when he’s not around. He’s killing people. He’s hurting omnics. He kidnapped you.

It’s hard. Talking with someone, with him, gives you something to do. A few days without anything to do but ruminate has left you itching for scraps of stimulation. He avoids the topics of his invasion and the state of the world. If you get too aggressive or remind him you won’t be swayed, he leaves- if it’s to punish you or to mitigate his own frustration, you aren’t entirely sure. It feels like a punishment… which only hurts more when he delivers food in silence.

Isolation becomes nightmarish after only a few hours- at least you think it’s hours. Trying to sleep through it leaves you waking at unfamiliar intervals, unsure how much time you’ve lost, if you’ve even slept at all. Then, he takes your dream. Unconscious fantasies of the outside world begin dwindling. More and more it’s him in this little pale room- saying things in garbled dialogue you can't follow, don’t want to even if you could.. And in some of them he does more than talk. Sometimes he’s the killing machine he was built to be with efficient, merciless hands- and sometimes he isn’t. You’d wake shaken, confused, angry- but with him or yourself you aren’t sure.

So you let him avoid the nastiness and you keep your composure, a small price to pay to have something more than the same blank walls that chip at your mind.

“It was… impactful seeing how the location of one’s awakening affected their life.” He muses one day, in better spirits than usual. “I knew this, even before I found the Shambali, but seeing for myself the… wide range of survival tactics some omnics employ was particularly enlightening. Some banded together, formed whole communities of omnics, adapting to the harsh environments around them. Some assimilated, as best they could. Took very human names, bought into their values.”

He quiets and looks at you. The implied barb about human desires never comes.

“I thought about you often,” He says quietly. As he speaks his voice rises, tenses: “A few of the omnics I met had human partners. At first, I couldn’t understand it after everything I had seen. How humans treat omnics- even in places they claim are equal…” His ventilation increases, a rush of air leaving him as he looks to you. “but then I would think of you. Of us.”

You can’t meet his gaze. Not when the conversation veers so close to vulnerability. He’s hurting people. He kidnapped you. But the admission still makes your chest tight, your eyes water. You thought of him too; with every couple you saw, every time a friend celebrated their anniversary you’d think of what year you’d be on now if you hadn’t…

Ramattra shifts, aware he’s said too much. Your silence adds to his discomfort, makes him sit up straighter- any longer and he’ll feel the need to leave. The threat of an empty room, of pacing and fitful naps pushes fear through your veins.

“Did you give them your blessing?” You settle on.

Ramattra visibly relaxes, leans towards you, openly basking in your voice. “Some asked for it. They worried I would perceive it as a conflict of interest.” Behind his faceplate his optics are settled on you, biometrics outlined in his HUD. “It would be hypocritical of me to deny them. Even if I doubted their human partners were as sublime as you.” He sees when your breath hitches, as much as you try to keep it quiet.

Sublime.

The praise shouldn’t make your belly flip, shouldn’t make you wish that things were different. He’s killing people. He kidnapped you. He kidnapped you. But it does. It makes you curl up into a little ball and bury your face in your knees. You don’t let yourself cry until Ramattra murmurs quiet apologies and makes his escape.

You are alone again.

Sleep doesn’t come for several hours- you think. How long did you cry? You can’t be sure- you only stop when your temples are pounding and you drag yourself to the bathroom to stick your head under the faucet. The cool water feels nice, washes tears and snot from your face- you lose yourself to the sensation of it, allow yourself to drift away.

In your mind it’s a cold mountain stream. You’re out hiking or venturing off near- near the monastery. Water is almost freezing on your face, on your hands, dripping down your neck. The walls of the monastery rise high on the mountain, floating statues of monks in prayer, of Aurora decorating the facade. You cup your hands, bring the water to your lips and drink.

Ramattra had always found the act of consumption strange.

He watches, almost motionless in the corner of your eye while you kneel at the riverbank. You smile at him as he comes closer. He speaks- the syllables are blurred together, tied up in the humming of his synth. In a way you know he’s scolding you- his annoyance is a thin veil for his worry- for getting your hands wet, it’s much too cold for this. He offers you his scarf with another terse reprimand. You’ll get sick.

You wake in your bed, unsure how you got there, unsure how long it’s been.

You sleep and wake and sleep and wake, a fitful cycle that makes you toss and turn. Any rest comes and goes with the imprint of nine red lights burning at the corners of your mind when you close your eyes.

His hands twitch at his sides as he stares at the door. Every day has gotten harder, requiring more and more convincing before he can enter your room. Because each day it’s worse.

I must do this. He reminds himself and pings the door to open.

And inside- inside you’re already sitting up on your bed. The blankets are rolled up, rumpled, spilling in brown and gold waves to the floor. You don’t look up when he enters. It’s not the angry, avoidant way you had been. No, that had hurt him so badly he had to dismiss warnings of potential damage.

But this? Your gaze is vacant, unmoving as he approaches, even when he speaks your name. This makes him afraid. Archived memories replay, human soldiers left behind- hearts still beating, but minds too worn down to fight any longer. Is that what he’s done to you?

Ramattra doesn’t know what to do. For weeks now you’ve slinked away from him any time he got close to you, so shaking you from this state would likely only scare you. Was it better for you to be conscious and afraid of him or- or whatever you are now?

Ramattra reaches for you- his fingertips nearly ghosting your cheek…

And his arm drops again. He can’t do it, can’t bring himself to be so close when that realization of disgust and hatred dawns on your features. He’s endured it too many times.

Instead, he drops to a knee before you- even the heavy clank of his knee on the tile does nothing to rouse you. He says you name again, first softly. Then louder- louder-

You blink, eyes coming into focus. Were you asleep? Were you…? Ramattra kneels hardly a breath away. But you’re so tired you can’t even bring yourself to scramble back, to scowl, to do anything more than whisper a hoarse, empty “Sorry,”

Ramattra doesn’t know what to do with sorry either. You haven’t apologized to him the entire time you’ve been here. You- you have nothing to apologize for. His fists clench at his sides. This isn’t your fault, even if you can’t understand his methods- he’s the one keeping you here, letting you waste away and-

Your eyes begin to drift away again. He never wanted to hurt you- that’s what all this was for, to avoid that.

“Are you all right?” He says, as kindly as he can manage.

All right? You fight to focus on him, to force the words through your fogged mind. You’re so tired. Physically, mentally- there’s so little left to give, can’t even find the energy to be angry. “Yeah,” You say, falling into autopilot, into routine. Empty excuses you’d make to anyone who asked. “I’m just.. tired. Sore. Haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Sore?” Ramattra’s head tips, optics observing your frame. The fatigue that weighs on you is written plainly on your face, but he can find no injuries.

“Yeah. Everywhere, I think. My back… and shoulders.” You mumble, reaching up to rub idly at your neck as you think about it, taking inventory of your aches.

Ramattara pauses, merely observes you as you blink slowly, wavering as you do- you hand stilling with the effort to open your eyes again. He doesn’t want to scare you off, doesn’t like that you’re still so disoriented. But he isn’t sure what else to do, other than to find a doctor. For now… “Would you… want me to rub them?

The thought is nice. Your hands hurt too, every knuckle complaining with even the most gentle kneads of your own shoulders. It’d been so long since he’d done that. His hand is firmer than your own, a benefit of steel fingers that force knots to unwind under his touch. Even as hesitant as he was to touch you at all, it had felt nice. Never once was it too much and-

and-

Awareness returns to you. He’s so close, perched so carefully in front of you, a cautious distance away. You aren’t sure what expression comes over your face, but whatever it is makes him draw back, begin to stand-

and you want to tell him no, you want to tell him to come back and you want so, so badly for him to rub your shoulders like he used to and he’s hurting people and you can’t find it in you to care about that anymore.

You’re so tired, so sore, so exhausted from days? weeks? months? of bad sleep and isolation and nobody in the world existing other than him in your little sterile room. You’re so fucked up for even considering it- ruined, broken for still loving him.

It all crumbles at once; your lower lip trembles as your vision blurs. Again Ramattra reels back, no longer in trepidation, but in shock as your mouth falls open in a silent, voiceless sob. The raw expression of your pain etched forever into his memory banks before you bring trembling hands up to cover your face. Then, and only then, do you gasp and cry out.

Before, he saw your crying in his security systems. The agony it caused him then is nothing compared to this. All the time spent talking himself into self-control is gone, any thought of your reaction is washed away in miserable tears.

“Oh, my dearest,” Ramattra sighs- and leans forward. His arms are huge, engulfing you in the scent of plastics and electricity and freshly spent flux. You don’t even fight him- just close your eyes and bawl.. Solder, too- he repaired something recently. The scent is familiar, comforting. He’s cool to the touch, no orange robes between his metal body and your skin- but you can’t complain as he lays one hand to the curve of your back, the only at the base of your neck.

“It’s all right,” He shushes you-- which only sets you off again. Receiving affection, comfort from him? It’s disgusting, wrong, traitorous- and yet you’re leaning into him. So carefully he pets your hair- and any chance of resistance is shattered, burned from you. You bury your face in his scarf, muffling your broken sobs in the fabric while you wrap your arms around him and pull him closer.

Ramattra’s clock skips, background processes hang at the warmth of your touch- of your embrace. It’s not just that he’s holding you- but you’re clutching at him in desperate handfuls, tugging him closer and closer until he’s nearly on top of you, his chest flush with yours.

Eleven years on and his shape is still what you remember, the same chassis you’d imagined holding over and over in the darkness of your room at night. The loneliness ate you alive, gnawing at every corner of your existence, wishing, wanting, aching to go back- and now you’re here. In his arms, crying into his scarf like nothing has changed at all. Your mantra is lost, forgotten in the comforting weight of him.

Something inside him shatters to hear you cry so pitifully. He holds you tighter, murmurs soothing words to you. He’s spent years crafting speeches to the image of you in his mind, but in this moment none of them feel right. So he whispers It’s alright, I’m here, I have you. and hopes that is enough to quiet the swells of whatever storm has broken in you.

It is, eventually.

Your tears slow into hiccups and sniffles. The white knuckle grasp you have on him loosens until you’re limp in his arms, leaning all your weight onto him. Ramattra takes it; his joints don’t ache, has no muscles to strain- merely supports you as the tension drains from your body.

Ramattra doesn’t know what to do with any of this- if you’ll still be willing to let him touch you tomorrow- but at least he can try to make you more comfortable. When he adjusts, picking you up entirely and sitting with you in his lap, your only reaction is to press your face deeper into his cowl. He sits and waits and wonders if you’ll wake up again and realize. Dread and guilt weigh on him- that he’s driven you to this sort of outburst, that he hopes, begs, pleads to anything that can hear him that this is real, that you mean this, that you won’t recoil from him tomorrow, that he hasn’t broken you entirely.

You don’t know how long you lay there- for once your mind is quiet, no thoughts racing in your head at all. All you think about is the humming of Ramattra’s fans, the warmth of his vents, the weight of his hands on you. Pleasant things. Things you’ve wanted for so long.

Ramattra knows. He holds you for exactly one hour and sixteen minutes. He knows that you began sleeping four times before you woke again. Each time he prepares himself for your sudden rejection- but it never comes.

And after an hour in his arms, wordless and pliant, you finally sit up. Ramattra’s optics focus hard on the red rims of your eyes and nose- and your lips when you say so quietly there’s hardly any voice to it at all- “I’m tired.” You lean away, almost falling sideways into your bed. It’s a struggle to move your limbs at all- knees aching from so long spent bent- but Ramattra kindly stands and helps adjust the blankets. He’s a little hurt when you settle in with your back to him, but he stands beside the bed and waits until your pulse drops to a calm, even pace.

Ramattra watches you, confused and enamored and so painfully hopeful. He hasn’t felt hope- true, honest hope- in so long. It’s foreign, unexpected. As he leaves your room he counts the time between the rise and fall of your chest, saves the memory over and over, dedicates a whole sector to it.