And Does Everything But Live

Seventy years have passed since I last visited Camis. Roughly. I could calculate the exact length of time, recall everything I was doing instead of visiting my friend, every second I spent not thinking about the virus, every second I spent searching desperately for the cure, but there aren't that many words in all the languages in the galaxy.

It doesn't seem like that long a time, and when he thaws, shivering and sick, still managing that smile for me, that smile that made me want to live, that smile that I try so hard to forget—his smile is still as perfect as a picture, both in my memory and in reality.

The routine is the same as it's been since he was first put into stasis. He wakes up and asks me how long it's been since we left Pema. I lie and tell him it's only been a few years—not a few millennia. The tilt of his head acknowledges my lie (he can read the data output on his berth as well as I can), and we make small talk until he asks about the cure. Ridiculous small talk. He asks about Rolee and Malon and Onanee (they're the same), what we've been doing (searching for the cure), have we stayed busy (we do nothing else), does Malon ever beat me in this or that game (we haven't played since leaving Pema), does Rolee still miss Niomee (as much as I miss you).

I think the reason I don't thaw him out more often is because I dread that question. I think he knows this, and this is why he stopped asking me to come back soon. Whenever I'm asked why I don't visit my friend more often, I reply that Camis is very young (he's over five thousand years old) and that I fear awakening him will awaken the virus. It's the truth, but it's not the whole truth.

Camis is still smiling. Weakly. The virus ravaged the Pemalites before we perfected our bio-stasis berths, and I wonder if leaving him frozen in sickness for all eternity is really preferable to artificial death. I wonder if Camis would prefer to die. I haven't asked him, and I won't; I lack both the means and ability to cause artificial death. My programming dictates that I must preserve life, natural, beautiful life, and it is my belief that this programming—this hell or high water, black or white programming that I can do nothing but follow—deserves the credit for our bio-stasis chambers.

I don't think biologicals would have been able to perfect it, with their organic limitations. But our limitation is that we have no limitations when it comes to the sanctity of life. If we hadn't perfected the bio-stasis chambers before the last of the Pemalites died—I don't know what would have happened, but it would have gone against our programming. Or maybe it wouldn't have; maybe our programming allows for when we're confronted with something that is purely impossible.

I don't know. We haven't reached that point. I hold Camis' paw and pray we never will. I can't imagine existing without this tiny, darling being I was created as a companion for.

I can almost feel his grip weakening, and I brace myself. It's coming. I know it is. He's going to ask me. I hate this moment. I want to shut down and freeze myself with him, be together in obliviousness, tell Rolee to thaw us and let us talk every few centuries or so, but I can't.

Camis smiles and yawns. He hugs me. I hug him back and wait.

He knocks his forehead against mine, and asks if Rolee will come to see him. He asks if Malon and Onanee will visit, too, and then may he please have a drink of water, and perhaps go back to sleep, before a coughing fit gets started.

He smiles, perfect, perfectly content, just as I remember, my same old Camis, and I fire off a mail to Rolee's cryscom, come see Camis, come see him before he dies like his parents have, like our Niomee has.

Come and let us be a family before I freeze him again, freeze him for another seventy or eighty or hundred thousand years. He knows I'll never find the cure, knows that he's going to die and leave me one day, and he doesn't want to torture me until then.

I have lasted thousands of years. I will last thousands more.

I will always remember the night Camis stopped asking me if he would get better.

My Camis has given up on me.

…

Some credit where credit is due—

Erekfic/Cheechron side story inspired by a couple posts by an Erek roleplayer on the livejournal community dear_mun, which was brought to my attention by Felinephoenix. Erek interacting with Ax and Marco and it's not in my head? Or something I've already read? Yes, please!

The bits about believing in the cure came into my head via Turnabout, by Margaret Petersen Haddix.

The title is shamelessly lifted from the directions/advertisement for Tik-Tok, the Clockwork Man, from L. Frank Baum's Oz books. I am secretly convinced that Baum was Erek and Tik-Tok is his Author Avatar. It's my first literary allusion title, and I am so proud of my kiddie pool of children's book references here.

As for Cheechron itself—Erek angsting over popsicle!Camis has always been a tentatively planned scene in there, but it was actually going to be a scene. A scene in which Camis acts adorable and makes you want to kill me for killing him. You'll have to settle for the angst without the cute.

And about the Drode—uhh. I need to think of some way for him to compete with Erek—I have the rest of the story pretty much planned out after that. Sorry…? I did not think this one through. XD