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"You ready, V?" Mirage calls out, voice echoing from inside the bathroom.
"I am waiting on you. I have been waiting on you," V2 responds, trying to keep its voice out of indignance and into light ribbing range. It's still getting the hang of tone, much to its fellow machine's annoyance.
It leans its hip on the side of the kitchen island with a muted clank, arms crossed.
The bathroom door opens, revealing a newly clean Mirage. Steam and heat emanate from the room; her faceplate still drips with water onto her tank top and cargo pants. V2 steps over and wipes the stray water off with its hand.
"I could have done that myself, you know," she gripes, but her squint-smile betrays her thoughts. "Let's go, then."
She pauses for a moment, staring at the taller machine. "You look good in that."
V2 looks down at itself. With a significant amount of griping and discussion about why it would need to wear clothes, they're the only two sentient beings here, Mirage had finally gotten it to raid her closet. It's wearing a large, dark overshirt over an old t-shirt and a knee length skirt, the most comfortable options it could find. Both shirts have holes cut in them for its wings, courtesy of a pair of kitchen scissors.
"Do I?"
"Yeah. Better than me, honestly. Your legs are longer, so they look nicer in skirts," she picks up the empty laundry bag sitting next to the bathroom door and slings it over her shoulder. "Let's head out."
V2 follows, walking ahead of her to open the screen door, gaining them another inscrutable look of simultaneous thankfulness and annoyance. It tries out a squint in response, and her expression vanishes; her eye's aperture widens and her fans rev up with a huff.
"What?" it says, flatly.
"No, you're fine. You- It's just... new to see you make expressions," she folds and re-folds the bag absentmindedly as she walks alongside them. "You usually have the same sort of vacant, half lidded stare."
"The top aperture gets jammed easily," V2 explains.
"I can fix it, if you want."
"It does not hinder my vision, there would be no reason beyond cosmetic. I will only ask for repairs when things are broken."
"...As far as I know, your pelvis was in perfect working order before I, uh, got to it. You want me to replace the wires down there, then?"
"No," V2 says, much too quickly, and Mirage laughs.
It looks down the road, watching the wind rustle the trees lining the road, brushing small tornadoes of dark green leaves into the alleyways between the buildings. It's hyperaware of its clothes blowing against its body, although the softness of the fabric stops the new sensory input from being overwhelming.
Occasionally, a leaf dots in and out of its vision for a few moments, the only reminder that this isn't actually the surface. To a human, they think, it might be distressing, but it finds the fact oddly comforting; a truly perfect simulation would be unnerving.
They'll ask about it later, they think. Maybe there are interesting ways to exploit it.
V2 feels pressure on its hand.
It nearly gives in to its emergency defense subroutine before realizing it's just Mirage; her fingers interlocked tightly with their own. They glance down, she's trying to keep her gait in sync with theirs by lengthening her steps.
The taller machine feels a vent quietly open on their back. It's a different feeling than that night, but it's adjacent; the same undefinable buzz of a positive feedback loop.
The risk of her breaking contact if it brings it up is too high for their liking, so it settles for observing the way her digits press into the back of their hand, how her thumb rubs against their own, the noise of their footsteps in tandem.
"Right here," Mirage breaks the silence, nudging their shoulder to turn them towards the door of the laundromat. To V2's dismay, she breaks the contact with its hand as they walk in.
The laundromat smells like chemicals and fresh linen, and V2's feet feel sticky on the black-and-grey tiled linoleum. The ceiling is low and cramped; the washing machines around them are in various states of functionality. It's dimly lit, but warm.
Mirage pulls out a pair of pants and pitches them a few feet into a dryer. They make a muffled clang as they hit the back of the interior.
"Do you need help?" V2 squats down next to her, nearly getting its knees stuck in its skirt.
"Sure, take this," she hands them a small pile of wet clothes, which they take. She gathers the rest and shoves them haphazardly into the other machine, letting V2 push in the rest and close the door. She snaps open one of the pockets on her pants and fishes out a few quarters to push in before starting the dryer cycle.
V2 has learned not to ask any arbitrary questions about the intricate practices of human life, like why she would need to pay for something like this despite currency being completely immaterial here, that she doesn't even need to wear clothes in the first place. It's about the ritual of it, she would say.
V2 wants to think it's learning the appeal.
It watches Mirage stand up straight with a faux stretch, rubbing at the exposed wires in her collar as she turns back to them.
"It'll take about an hour to finish. We can go home for a bit, I don't really care."
V2 notices the way the straps of her sports bra misalign with the collar of her tank top.
"We can stay here," it replies.
"Sure," she hoists herself up on one of the washers with a thud, dangling her legs off the machine. V2 approaches and leans back on the next machine over, careful to adjust its wings accordingly.
There's a moment of silence, filled only by the slow, warm rhythm of the dryer. One of the overhead lights flickers in the corner.
V2 feels something brush their bad shoulder and they jump, turning with wings fully spread in defense... to see a wide-eyed Mirage.
"Sorry! Sorry," she puts her hands up. "That's my fault, I should ask beforehand."
"Not your fault," it relaxes, trying to put a warm tone in its voice. "You can touch me."
Please touch me, it wants to say. It wants to feel her hands over it, holding it close. To feel the way their hands fit together.
It tries to shut out the thoughts for a moment: these concepts are wholly useless, inefficient to its processing speed; then realizes there's no reason it needs to save space. It's allowed to break some rules.
It lets its thoughts get the better of it.
It steps closer to Mirage, placing itself between her knees, and she puts her hands on their shoulders.
"Hey, V." She says it so softly it's almost to herself.
V2 can't find the words to respond.
It hesitates for a moment, calculating, before tilting its head to the side and leaning in. Their faceplates tap together, a small spark of static electricity traveling between them when they part.
Logically, it knows the sensation is just the same as touching any other part of her, yet there's something so different about the simple proximity of their faces.
Mirage leans back to look at them, eye wide. Her grip on their shoulders tightens, thumbing the fabric of their shirt. V2 can't read her expression, and its worry grows every millisecond she's paused.
"M-" V2 starts to say before Mirage hooks her legs behind them and pulls their hips flush with the edge of the washing machine, shoulders abandoned in favor of grabbing both sides of its face, holding their head up as she peppers them in kisses.
V2's fans go into overdrive, trying to compensate for the new input. Its HUD desperately pings it, trying to tell it their pneumatics aren't getting nearly enough power to keep it upright, but they ignore it, opting instead to let their hand travel down Mirage's body, a lazy line from the back of her head, to the side of her chest, thumbing where it knows the lights are on her breastplate, finally worming its fingers under her shirt and letting their fingers rest on the small of her back.
Mirage's fingers brush around its head, thumbing the seams and cables connected to its neck. Her other hand pulls up V2's skirt slightly, tracing circles into their thigh; she kisses them one last time on their lower faceplate before pushing them back gently.
"Why did you stop?" V2 squints at her in annoyance.
She points down. "You're about to collapse."
Its legs are shaking; maybe it shouldn't have ignored that warning. A single fan in V2's system revs up in a sigh.
"Come on, sit down," she insists, unwrapping her legs from around them and pushing their shoulder down with a hand. It concedes, lowering itself to the ground and leaning its back against the washers. Mirage hops down with them, settling herself next to its good side.
V2 closes the gap near-immediately, slouching downward to rest its head on her shoulder.
"You've been all over me today, V." Mirage bumps the top of V2's head with her own. "Is something up?"
V2's vocal processor clips over itself as they try to form a coherent sentence. "-feels good," it mumbles.
"...That's as good an answer as any."
The clothes in the dryer in front of them tumble over one another in a mess of color.
"Being touched is unfamiliar to me," V2 speaks up. "Outside of maintenance, it was unnecessary."
"Maintenance. How long ago was that?"
"One moment." V2 digs back into its memory repository, filtering through relevant dates. "Most recent daily upkeep and repair routine, ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine hours, ninety nine seconds ago. Numerical overflow prevents my system from counting further back."
Mirage taps V2's thigh in thought. "That's... a hundred and ten years ago, or around that." She moves suddenly, V2's head falling off her shoulder as she turns to face them, voice pitched high. "You're that old?"
"An unknown amount of time elapsed afterwards."
"That's... Then you're even older than that."
"Yes." It watches her gaze travel up and down their body. "What?"
"You don't look that old, wow. You're telling me you spent that long without any sort of physical contact?"
"Aside from encounters with the denizens of Hell. Are you making a point?"
"Yes, V. You're like, the most touch-starved thing in machine history."
"I do not require touch to function."
Mirage gives them a look they've never seen her make before.
"Yeah, well you're not living just to function anymore."
The dryer buzzes.
V2 gives Mirage a belated nod of affirmation as she stands up and gives the larger machine a hand. She pulls the laundry bag from the top of the washers, pulling open the dryer door to start piling the warm laundry into the bag.
"I think I'm just going to hang out once we're home," she says after she stands back up, fumbling with the strings of the bag. "I'm still halfway through the level of the game I was playing this morning."
"Alright." V2 hopes the way it squints at her is somewhat reminiscent of a smile; she laughs quietly as their gazes meet.
It bumps their faceplates together as they hold the door open for her, stealing one more kiss.
The outdoors are just as dim as the interior of the laundromat. The sides of the buildings painted with a warm yellow glow, the light glints off their bodies in odd ways; Mirage's plating is nearly the color of her eye. The dusk is silent, no wind blows through the trees, no bugs sound in the brush. V2 feels as if it's intruding on the scene, in a way.
Mirage sets the laundry bag down on her bed with a thump as soon as she gets inside, throwing herself facedown on the sheets next to it while V2 closes the door behind them. The fan is still running in the bathroom, which reminds them...
"May I take a shower?"
"...Huh? Sure, go ahead," she mumbles, her voice muffled by the sheets. "Do you need me to help you start it? The heat is kind of finicky."
"I am able to clean myself alone, but th-" it cuts itself off, reconsidering before manually raising its tone in a way it knows is suggestive. "You can help, if you would like."
Mirage pulls herself off the bed, sitting up to face them. "What?"
"I was implying-" V2 tries to stammer out before it's interrupted.
"No, I got it, V." Her eyelid lowers, and she turns away to grab her towel from the chair it was drying on earlier. "I'll be right there."
V2 turns into the bathroom, stopping by the mirror for a moment to squint at itself. The expression feels alien on their face, but maybe in time it'll feel more natural, it thinks.
It looks back at Mirage, who has joined them in the reflection.
"You ready, or are you just going to stand there watching yourself like an idiot?"
"Waiting on you," it replies.
"Oh, you asshole," she flicks the back of its head, stepping past them to turn the water on.
Learning how to live again is difficult, but it feels as though it'll have a long while to figure things out.