Thank you for your time, Miss Mirage. Take care of yourself.
Mirage: You too, Miss.
I know I gave the impression that I was struggling, but I’ve never been better. Well, to be more accurate, it’s getting easier and easier to pull myself out of pits. Can’t give myself all the credit though. Love you, V2. V1, you too. Good luck with whatever you’re going to do from now on, Gabriel.
Sooner or later you’ll gaslight me into believing that things do get better.
Right.
Uh. Cut. And I thought Gabriel’s monologue was long… this is going to be hell to edit and mix. Yeah, thanks V2. You can shut that off now.
[tape clicks]
~~~
He hears the door open behind him when he finally gets used to the keys.
‘Come to watch me play?’ Struggle, more like. His skills on organ are transferable to the piano, but having to rewire almost everything else is still challenging.
V1 skulks into the room, hauling itself over plastic chairs arranged in a semicircle around the piano. Gabriel watches it move; maintenance has only made it more graceful. It slides up to him, head tilted at an angle, hands folded behind its back.
Gabriel swings his legs over the piano stool. ‘What is it you want?’
It holds up his hands. Wait.
It reaches for its head but aborts the gesture at the last minute. ‘How did your meeting go?’
And he cannot lie, so he says, ‘It went well.’
V1 shrugs. It reaches for its head again, digging its fingers into the plate near its neck. Gabriel watches, fascinated, dread growing in his stomach, as it slides open a panel and reaches into its own head, its arms contorting at an impossible angle.
‘Machine. What are you doing?’
It ignores him and locks its fingers into some unseen component in its head. Then, without warning, it pulls with all its might.
With a concerningly loud clank, it pulls out a circuit board, lined with glinting lights, some of which are flashing red rapidly. Wires trail from the board, connecting back into V1’s head.
It walks over to him and drops the circuit board, trailing wires and all, into his lap.
Gabriel looks from it to V1, then back at the circuit board.
‘What the FUCK?’
He wills himself to stay still. If he dropped this—this is someone’s brain—
Calmly, V1 grabs his left hand by the wrist, turns it palm-up, and places the circuit board in his hand.
It signs, ‘Hold this for me.’
‘You’re insane.’
It extracts a pair of earphones, looking irreversibly tangled, from within its wings. It even folds the wings when it’s done, as if dropping its brain into someone else’s hands is just another Tuesday for it.
‘I could kill you like this,’ says Gabriel, out loud.
V1 gets to untangling the earphones. It does not respond.
‘Are you out of your goddamn mind? Do you want to spend the rest of your life as a shell of your former self?’
It sets down the earphones. ‘You won’t do that to me.’
And the most frustrating part is that it is right. He doesn’t want it dead, not anymore, not after…
It held his hand for reassurance, taken apart on the floor of its room.
The realisation hits him like V1’s car on the day they met.
It trusts him, more than anything. And it is showing this trust by handing him its brain.
Gabriel feels, rather than hears himself laugh, shoulders shaking, hand sweaty as he holds the circuit board. The processor chip is in the middle, indicator lights blinking. He laughs, the sound tinged with fear and epiphany and terrible, terrible understanding.
‘And you said you did not know how to return affection.’
V1 holds up a finger and taps him on the helm, right over where his mouth would be. Gabriel stops laughing, letting it secure one of the earbuds at the side of his head with tape and prayers.
It connects the plug of the earphones into the circuit board, holding Gabriel’s hand to steady it. Finally the other earbud goes into its head, right in the empty space where its brain used to sit.
‘Spare me some time, will you?’
For you? Anything. But what comes out is a stiff nod as he continues to keep his attention on the circuit board.
V1 tugs at the wires trailing from its head, unspooling them further. ‘Come here.’
It lies down on the floor, wings cushioning its form. Cradling the circuit board close to his chest, Gabriel joins it, his heart rate spiking when he hears the clink of the board against the clasp of his belt.
And then he turns to face V1, and his heart pounds for another reason entirely. He can see into its skull—delicate components meticulously arranged, wiring threading through the gaps. It is beautiful, it is terrifying, and he resists the urge to touch it.
He can hear its fans, its breath grazing over his skin.
V1 reaches out and taps a button on the circuit board. The sound that comes out of Gabriel’s earbud makes him shudder.
It’s so loud. Different sounds tossed carelessly into a blender and made to harmonise. An abomination of noise, piped directly into the sensitive membrane of his ear.
But V1 is looking at him, unreadable as always, and its hands are gripping his wrists, the force almost painful.
And so Gabriel listens.
~~~
The music room was brightly lit when he first came in, the lights so brilliant they reflected off the porcelain tiles.
Now Gabriel is not so sure.
He is still clutching V1’s brain, the machine’s fingers wrapped around his wrists. He has a feeling that wherever he is, this strange pit in the fabric of reality, condensed into however many minutes of music he has listened to—V1 is right there with him.
He draws himself closer, and V1’s fans kick into overdrive.
There is a six-by-three foot hole in the world, and the two of them lie in it, darkness caressing them like a lover’s touch.
V1 inclines its head slightly as the music begins to fade out.
Bit by bit, the world comes back in stark clarity. The ceiling fan overhead, still whirring. The hum of halogen lights. His and V1’s bodies on the floor. The piano less than five feet away. Ah, yes. He’d been practicing…
He looks down at the circuit board. The red indicator lights blink at him curiously.
‘Do you wish for me to continue holding… this?’
V1 nods.
‘What did you want to tell me?’
V1 lifts its hands, head tilted.
‘Did you like it?’
Gabriel stops in his tracks. By all means what he had just listened to was awful; grating, dreadful, and more noise than music.
‘I did.’
And that is not entirely a lie. V1 let him hold its brain in his hands for twenty minutes, dragged him into its inner workings for a while. What else can he say to that?
V1 shifts closer. Gabriel watches it approach, single eye taking up his entire field of view. A second sun.
A soft clink as it presses its faceplate to his helm. It does not let go of his hands.
Gabriel exhales slowly, letting his breath trace the shape of V1’s lens.
i had this scene in my head for quite a long time now (actually, ever since i started having the idea for a college/band AU) and writing it was so cathartic. i too wish for someone i love and trust dearly to hold my brain in their hands