Charlie J Forrest

“Not the end I’d wished for lad,” he said, voice leaden with despair and frustration. Despite his many years and the countless battles he’d seen, he’d never found himself like this, never been this close to giving up.

He felt the touch on his shoulder, metal on metal, pressing down reassuringly.

“It’ll be alright,” said the youth.

He wanted to cry when he realised he’d heard those words, said that way, before. The youth didn’t know they were once spoken to him by a condemned prisoner, already dead but just waiting for the administrative burden to catch up with him.

He didn’t reply, not verbally. He didn’t want to lie to the youth, not now, not like this. Instead he returned the touch, wrapping an arm around his waist with a dull, leaden thunk.

Robots never truly grow old. Out-dated and rusty perhaps, but they are still everything they were created to be. The optics still detect beauty, the sensors still detect heat, pressure, friction. And the mind, the mind still remembers everything, the difference between the solid unfeeling bump of armour on armour and the playful denting and popping of sheet metal. The touch of fingers into crawl spaces and conduits, and the inexpressible wrongness of cables being plucked, pulled out of place and singing quietly.

He let his fingers slide around between the plates of the youth’s waist, stroking gently at the softer mass of plastic and wire beneath. The youth let out a gasp, but didn’t pull away. The veteran leaned into him, resting his head on the bright orange chest. The youth responded by wrapping both his arms around the older one, fingers similarly slipping into vulnerable places.

“Just… just hold me,” he whispered, voice cracking with static and heartbreak.

So they held, and they touched and they whispered. Two war machines, struggling desperately to learn to make love in the shadow of the darkest hour.