Title: r-obot
Ch: 04
Author: Lucifer Rosemaunt
Series: AU erik

Summary: All companions are androids, but not all androids are companions… There are things worse than Protocol 129 to fear.
Fandom: Phantom of the Opera
Pairing(s): Erik/Raoul slash
Warning(s): scifi!AU, androids, angst
Word Count: 2,590
Rating: K+

A/N: An update? Whoa. That's weird.

o.o.o.o

Erik thought… No, he knew he had done better this time around. They had been better.

He had somehow struck a balance of sorts when dealing with his android. They shared their meals; rather, Erik ate the food that had been meticulously prepared to his exact taste while the android puttered around the kitchen and living room making offhanded comments about the weather, the colony, the news, whatever came to his mind, babbling because he did not expect Erik to respond.

Erik preferred not to. He just wanted to hear Raoul's voice. He relished in the inflections and tones, in the way he could at least momentarily forget the broken way Raoul had spoken to him before the last reset. The steady litany of pleasantries and facts that Erik barely made the effort to comprehend: the forecast is sunny today; a new variant has just come on the market; the bakery has been doing well; the sandstorm should not last very much longer was a balm to the open wound that was their last parting. There were times he could still feel Raoul's hair beneath his fingers, the smooth skin that had been warm and alive and then, all too still.

They also managed to spend hours apart from each other, mostly when Erik worked although it was impossible when he required the android to model for him. He limited himself to how much time they could spend together in the workshop though; he had to.

Raoul still became the android and the man Erik could see beyond simple code. He was a being Erik could not help but gravitate towards despite his best efforts at keeping his distance. He could only grudgingly admit that he looked forward to the poorly hidden glances and lingering touches. It was easier to let those things happen without feeling too much guilt when he thought of a life bereft of it completely. What was most difficult now, however, was letting him leave their home and he only allowed it sparingly. The fear niggled in the back of his mind that the front door would shut and this would be the time that Raoul would decide not to come back. Again.

Erik could not lose him, not so soon.

So, it was understandable that as he laid bleeding in the middle of his workshop, his first thought was of Raoul rather than the alarming rate at which blood was pooling around him.

The large stone block he had gotten for the commissioned sculpture stood taller and wider than him, occupying much of his workshop. More importantly, it had been improperly inspected. He was as comfortable using laser stonecutters as he was breathing, and he knew the exact moment when that laser found something other than stone. It took mere milliseconds for the laser to heat the asteroid silicate high enough to cause the stone block to explode in a shower of sharp shrapnel and projectiles. Erik recoiled and jerked away on reflex alone, the laser shutting off as he dropped to the floor. He covered his head, face turned to the side and held the position until the shower of stone particles stopped raining down upon him.

Dust clouded his workshop when he finally looked up. The stone block was reduced to jagged wedges precariously leaning against each other in a messy mound while the smaller pieces had spread throughout the workshop. Thinking he had managed to escape the incident relatively unharmed save for the scratches on his arms and face, he tried to stand, only to feel a stab of pain that arrested any possible motion. Looking down, he saw his shirt darkening with blood. He coughed once before crumpling forward, barely having the energy to raise his hands to break his fall.

As he let his body ease even further against the hard concrete floor, his android raced in having heard the explosion. Erik struggled to keep his eyes open, and he thought he was doing rather well holding onto consciousness, until he started realizing that his tracking of the android was rather disconnected. Raoul would suddenly be somewhere else, moving through the room.

A single thought from Raoul set off the alarm that blared through the house and more importantly, across the colony to inform the paramedics.

His android ripped through the med kit on the far wall for the nano-injector.

The next moment, Raoul was across the room on his knees by his side.

Erik's head was lifted and though it made his stomach burn in agony, he was in Raoul's arms and was distracted enough by that and the stickiness of his shirt that he hardly felt the stab of the needle into his abdomen. He stomach cramped even worse though in what he figured was the nano-med bots flooding his system, working to keep him alive.

He was certain that injection would do little more than momentarily stave off death.

He could barely see Raoul's face, just a messy curtain of blond hair interspersed with what could easily have been mistaken as tears clinging to the edges of his eyes, and Erik wondered if he should not have, in fact, invested in that entirely too-expensive, home medipod.

Raoul's arms were strong and desperate, tight enough that it should hurt, tight enough that Erik should wonder why he found it the only place he wanted to be in this moment. His face was so close and Erik still found his breath taken away every time he saw him. His android was undeniably beautiful no matter what expression he wore. Raoul's lips were moving and it took several tries before Erik could comprehend the words.

"Stay with me. Please. Don't. You'll be fine."

And that certainly sounded like panic, like desperation. His voice broken in ways that hurt more than the stone had was breathtaking to witness. Although Erik conceded the breathtaking aspect of it might just be the injury since he was fighting against the overwhelming urge to close his eyes and sleep. Darkness crept in at the edge of his vision and he wondered if the paramedics would arrive in time.

He blinked and suddenly Raoul was being ripped away from him. Their fingers had been entwined before their painful disentangling and Erik let out a groan that was a mixture of pain and distress. Raoul clawed to reach him, tossing a man to the floor.

The workshop flooded with more men. Constables quickly outnumbered the paramedics, physically creating a barrier between him and his android.

Still, Raoul came for him. Shouts filled the room in a symphony of chaos, and Erik was being lifted from the floor. It was becoming more difficult to focus. He could not see Raoul any longer; so, he flailed.

Then, he heard,

"… rogue android."

"Take him down."

And Erik reached out, struck out despite the tug on his abdomen, knowing that his android would still be fighting the constables. The word No was mumbled because he could not seem to get his mouth to work. He swallowed the blood that filled it but did not let the strong copper flavour distract him. He had selfishly hoped Raoul would always come back to him, but at that moment, he almost wished he would not.

They had been so lucky with that Giry woman convincing the constables not to practice their right to power down a rogue android. Too lucky. He had been stupid enough to think that since they had successfully avoided that fate once, he could continue keeping Raoul safe by limiting the android's excursions outside. He simply had not expected it to happen in his own home.

What came out of the mouth of the constable grappling with his android was not Protocol 129. It would not be a factory reset; that was reserved for owners. The directive spoken was convoluted with an extension specific for the constabulary to be used in moments of duress, but the protocol was the same no matter who said it. Protocol 555 was a kill switch, an electric jolt that was designed to debilitate and shut down any android in contact with a human.

Later, when he looked back on this exact moment, he would not hear the struggles, the constable's exact words, or Raoul's shouts of anger. He would not feel the crippling pain or the odd stickiness of his own blood causing his shirt to cling uncomfortably to his part-cauterized, part-open and debris-filled wound. He would not taste copper and stone because his entire world would shrink to Raoul's cornflower blue eyes filled with both terror from what they both knew was going to happen and resolve as he continued to fight harder to be by his side.

Only the stab on his arm prevented Erik from hurting himself further with his thrashing. Before everything went dark, he saw Raoul's body seize then go slack as his eyes rolled back. His body crumpled to the floor as the constables released the dead weight that no longer posed a threat to their safety. Raoul was kicked aside by paramedics to make room for the transport pod.

o.o.o

It took a week and a half in the medipod at the colony's sole hospital to mend the damage the laser and subsequent stone projectiles had done, to mend the slice through his abdomen and intestines. He was informed before being released that the nanobots had been integral in saving his life. It had kept the toxins low enough to allow the paramedics to arrive and for the pod to eventually do the rest.

His side was still tender when he made it back home to a house too quiet, too dark, and Erik thought himself a coward for walking through every other room in the house before entering his workshop. The stone pieces had been gathered into a large bin that he would have to sort through in order to determine what could be salvaged. The floor was cleaned of dust and blood, and as he stepped into the room, he was assaulted by the pervasive smell of disinfectant cleaner. It was still not strong enough to completely cover the tang of blood that lingered. The cleaning robot had tried to do its job in the aftermath of his accident, but the floor was not the source of the smell.

There, where he last saw him, was Raoul. His android had his limbs askew, body akin to that of a marionette whose strings had been cut and tossed aside. His face was partially covered by his hair, though it was clear to see it was still smeared with dust from that day. The blood that colored his clothes was no longer the vibrant red that he remembered, just a dull brown. It was the color of the taste that still remained in his mouth when he thought of Raoul fighting to get to him. If he tried, he could picture him disheveled and desperate. When he was not trying, all he would see was Raoul's body seizing and eyes that had been trained on him rolling to the back of his head.

Erik had luckily spent most of his time in the medipod dreaming of him, of them apart from the accident. It had felt real enough that they could very well have been memories. His healing had been filled with such mundane events, quiet moments of just the two of them in their home: talking, eating, and sitting in front of the MIDS watching a movie. Even his dream self had not been delusional though; he had maintained some awareness of the aberration that was his android looking at him with clear affection. Raoul had been openly happy and so damn pleased when Erik returned not only the expression but also the sentiment.

He almost preferred the delusions as he approached the body. His mind was combating the image of Raoul's reaction to the protocol by itemizing the reported aftermath of Protocol 555: memory banks cleared of even the basic learning algorithms; speech, vision, touch all lost; impaired movement caused by misfiring signals or destroyed wiring; spontaneous self-factory resets; limited lifespans due to compromised energy storing capabilities; and in some cases, an android never powering back up.

Taking his time and ignoring the strain on his abdomen, Erik rearranged Raoul's body so he was lying flat on the floor. In his current state, this slight, young man who looked so vulnerable and pale seemed an unlikely person to have injured almost a dozen men. Erik reached out and hesitated for only a moment before wiping Raoul's cheek of dust. He ended up doing little more than smearing it across his face, so he drew his thumb across the chilled skin again. His android had never been this cold before. He tugged the blood-stained shirt down and briefly considered changing his clothes. That would require him not only removing them but also leaving him alone in the workshop, and Erik could not imagine doing so again now that he was finally here. He could not allow himself to put forth that effort towards normalcy and not know if Raoul would even function.

With the help of a robot and a hover cart, he managed to bring Raoul to the living room and situate him on the sofa. With a damp cloth brought to him, he cleaned the little skin showing and allowed his hands to linger in a way he had never permitted himself to do before. He indulged in carefully passing the cloth over Raoul's forehead and cheeks, fingertips grazing his lips and down his neck, and lastly to his hands. He faintly recalled how it felt to have their fingers entwined.

He was a coward, delaying the inevitable simply because he was afraid of who would reboot, if Raoul would reboot at all if he said the words.

Standing in front of his android motionless, he stared, hearing a loop of his own voice saying the directive and seeing Raoul's corresponding reactions for each instance.

"Apply directive 7Z439KYM Protocol 129."

There were heavy moments of silence, of no reaction from his android during which time Erik willed Raoul to fight his way back to him, to return. There was a reason to return. There had always been a reason to return.

He dropped bonelessly to sit beside Raoul on the sofa as he let his head hang low, eyes closing in defeat.

"Raoul," he whispered.

Opening his eyes, he looked at where his android's hand rested on the couch. Slowly, as the silence seemed to only deepen, he reached out and slid his fingers down the inside of Raoul's wrist and down his palm, before letting their fingers slot together. He gripped tightly and started when he felt a responding squeeze, but when he looked down, Raoul's hand was once again lax and unresponsive no matter how tightly he held on.

He almost disregarded the moment as a result of his imagination when a familiar though blank voice stated.

"Protocol 129. Formatting…"

Erik held on a moment longer, just staring at his android as the tension left him, making him feel exhausted in its wake. Raising their hands the slightest bit just to feel the comforting weight Raoul's hand, he reluctantly disentangled their fingers before standing up.

There were still too many things that could go wrong from the kill switch and Erik could not let himself hope. He could not let himself wait the four hours just sitting by the android's side.

o.o.o.o

End Chapter 04

A/N: Read and Review.
Chapter Review: Worst wait ever. :( You thought Raoul would escape the constabulary and Protocol 555. I think not. At least he powered back on? Small favours? Also, it makes sense to have a kill switch because Raoul would've done a lot worse to those officers had he not held back. Will he even return to normal? D: Who knows?