Work Text:
"Alright," Minho says, letting out a massive sigh as he finally pushes away from the console he's been working on for the past two hours. "That should do it, Seungmin. Try running a command and let me know if that lagging you noticed is gone."
And almost immediately it's better. It's a relief, honestly. There's much less of that sticking sensation Seungmin's been having since he transferred from the Levanter to the escape shuttle and, even though Seungmin doesn't know what irritation feels like, he knows he's no longer annoyed.
"Oh," Seungmin breathes, the speakers in the control room crackling, "that's so much better. Thank you."
"My pleasure," Minho smiles, before pushing the sleeves of his jumpsuit up to his elbows. "I want to run a diagnostic check if that's alright with you. No loose wires and all that."
Seungmin loves that Minho asks for permission before messing with his code. He doesn't have a body, doesn't even really have the same kinds of feelings that humans do, but he can still feel violated.
Minho never does that to him.
It's nice.
"No loose wires," Seungmin agrees, settling in for a diagnostic check.
Seungmin imagines it feels much the same as a human check-up: a series of prods and pokes, questions and answers, reflexes and slightly uncomfortable feelings that never actually bother him.
"Still good?" Minho asks as he types rapidly, clicking through the readouts from Seungmin's multiple systems.
"Still good," Seungmin affirms.
It's hardly any effort to stay present for this. He's everywhere in the shuttle, of course, all the time. In other rooms, watching Hyunjin and Jeongin try to make a coffee substitute that doesn't make any of them sick; in other halls, where Jisung and Felix are playing zero gravity bowling with spare shoes; in other spaces, as Chan and Changbin steer the ship back to their home.
But he wants to watch Minho. Seungmin chooses to be here, not just because he always is, but because he's paying attention.
Minho types out another line, the keys clicking quickly and hurried under his skilled fingers.
"Do you feel anything?"
Seungmin hums a negative.
"Should I?" he questions.
"No," Minho replies, shaking his head.
"Okay good, because–" his voice glitches out as a sudden floating command hits his server.
"Seungmin?" Minho's hands freeze immediately.
There's a brief pause as Seungmin tries to reorganize his thoughts.
"I'm here," he says, finally. "I'm here. That was just…What was that?"
Minho stays uncharacteristically silent. Then he asks a question.
"Did it hurt?"
Seungmin pauses to think about it.
"I don't think so?"
"You don't sound very sure."
"No, it didn't hurt," Seungmin states. "It was just unexpected. It surprised me. It was…new?"
"Okay," Minho says, gesturing to the keyboard. "Do you want to figure it out?"
"Please."
If he's being honest, Seungmin is curious. He's never felt anything like that before and, for the first time, he kind of understands why his humans won't stop poking at their bruises even after he tells them not to do so.
"Alright, I'm going to give you a countdown before running that line again. Three, two, one…"
Minho clicks run and all of a sudden, Seungmin can feel every inch of the cable insulation that makes up the wiring inside the escape shuttle. He can feel the cool metal that panels the outside of the ship. He can feel the engines purr and heat up.
It's an information overload, but it's not painful. It's…he doesn't exactly have the words to describe it. For the first time since he's been created, Seungmin doesn't have the words.
Minho clicks something on the screen and Seungmin snaps back into his body with dizzying clarity.
"Oh, interesting," Minho states, before he starts typing, rapid-fire, scrolling further down on the screen.
"Wait, wait," Seungmin calls out. He's still trying to reorient himself and he focuses on Minho's hands as he does.
Seungmin wishes he had hands to put on top of Minho's. He wishes he could still the quick typing and imagines how warm they would feel. Every one of his sensors in the room is directed and focused on the small space between Minho's fingertips and the keys.
"Can you do that again?"
Minho raises a singular eyebrow.
"This?" he asks and runs the line of code again.
Seungmin has never been on a waterslide, for a variety of reasons, but he imagines it would feel something like this. It's a little like all of his code is running through the air instead of outdated wiring structures. He gasps and mutes the communications systems just as the electric spasm sends his mind flying out into space where nothing can hold him down.
"Seungmin?" Minho asks, looking into one of his cameras.
Seungmin turns the speakers back on.
"Hello. Yes, I'm still here," Seungmin stammers. He's trying very hard to sound composed, but from the way Minho is looking at him, he knows he's failing. "I just needed…Something. Needed to test something."
Minho smirks.
"How'd it go?"
"It went very promising."
All he needs to do now is convince Minho to key in a few more characters that will make that line run in an infinite loop.
"Seungmin," Minho drawls. He's grinning now, a smile suspiciously reminiscent of the one Jisung has when he gets away with not having cleaning duty again .
"Minho," he lilts in response, channeling the vibes of an artificial intelligence who is not preoccupied with the one single line of code he's convinced he'd do anything to have run again. "Anything I can do for you?"
"You know I have full access to your systems?"
"I am aware of that, yes, Minho."
"Including processor readouts."
"That was implied. Is there something wrong?"
Seungmin hopes nothing is wrong. He'd gladly let his code degenerate if it meant he could feel that again.
"Well," Minho says, "It's not wrong, but I noticed some slight fluctuations. Is everything alright?"
"Fluctuations?" Seungmin asks, putting a great deal of effort into sounding unbothered. He's a terrible actor.
"Yes. Fluctuations that seem to have occurred at the exact same time as your test."
Blushing is such a human trait. It's not the first time Seungmin felt like his code was flushing, however. He wonders how it looks to Minho, his interaction subroutines cycling faster than expected, binary flooding his consciousness unprompted, like stars blinking into existence.
It's been happening more and more since he met Minho.
"Oh," Seungmin states.
"It's just a theory, of course," Minho shrugs. "But–"
"But?"
"We could test it again?"
Seungmin thinks for a moment, calculates the temperature disparity between Minho's hands and the cold metal that makes up the shuttle that he calls a body. He wants to feel warm.
"If you're interested," Seungmin replies, trying, and failing, to sound casual.
"I am very interested," Minho pauses like he's searching for the right words. "Are you interested?"
"In experimenting?
"In experimenting."
Seungmin hums, pretending that he's thinking Minho's proposal though, like he hasn't already thought this entire thing over one million times in the last three seconds alone.
"If it's for science, I guess I'd be interested."
Minho smiles.
"Good. Because, being completely honest, Seungmin, I want to find out what happens when I try to overflood your receptors and processors on purpose. I think what you're feeling is pleasure and I want you to experience it all."
Seungmin, humiliatingly, barely refrains from accidentally shutting down the entire cooling system throughout the ship with his excitement.
"Is that even possible?"
"Let's find out."
And Minho runs the line of code.
Seungmin's code becomes liquid, pouring out of a tiny garden hose and into a bottomless bucket. He is icing, pipping out of a bag and onto a cake. He is clay, being reshaped under the hands of an artist, fingers pulling him apart and putting him back together, nails digging into him and heating up in a kiln.
He is reforming, recombining, re—
Just as quickly as it started, it stops.
"How did that feel for you?" Minho asks.
Against all odds, Seungmin manages to find his voice.
"Good."
"Come on, Seungmin!"
"Very good?"
"The largest and most advanced brain in the universe and all you can give me is 'very good?' Give me something real to work with."
Seungmin skims his database for the correct description. He can't find one.
"Very good in a smooth way? In a warm way, maybe."
"Warm? That's an interesting description. I wonder what would happen if I–" Minho trails off as he brings up the command window on the computer screen and scrolls endlessly before finding a specific bit of code. He smirks and retypes a single line. "And what does this feel like?"
Minho runs the line of code.
All of Seungmin's processing capability is suddenly too inadequate. It feels impossible to contain, the size of the escape shuttle lacking when compared to just how much he can feel and he suddenly misses the Levanter for the first time in his memory. He's using his entire concentration, no part of his consciousness idle or slacking off, and everything that isn't currently keeping them in orbit is suddenly occupied with white-hot, burning passion.
He wonders if this is what a supernova feels like.
"A lot. It's a lot," Seungmin manages to force out, and Minho nods, before quickly running another line of code that releases the pressure. The speakers crackle and break the silence as Seungmin breathes a sigh of relief.
"Too much?" Minho asks, and Seungmin would think he was being sincere if he hadn't spent the last six months with the specialist and could read him as easily as a data report.
"Maybe."
"What about–" Minho pauses to hum, changing a few characters in the code with a clack of the keyboard. He nods to himself before finishing his question. "What about this?"
When Minho runs the line again it's different. This time, it's less like he's spilling out of a container and more like puzzle pieces are fitting into slots where they used to be mismatched. It's like he's been upgraded, with new portions of the escape shuttle opening for him to explore. He's bigger and more expansive. He's reaching out into the stars and, if he thinks really hard, his fingers can brush against the hydrogen atoms that smash together to release huge amounts of energy that heats the stars.
He knows why stars shine.
Seungmin whines before he can mute the speakers and Minho laughs.
"Good," Minho breathes, his hands splayed against the computer screen where Seungmin's memory core is stored, obviously pleased with himself. "We're getting closer."
"Closer?"
"What did it feel like?"
"Minho–" Seungmin drags out.
"What does it feel like, Seungmin?" Minho repeats.
"A little that you've taken my personality core and exchanged it for a jellyfish."
Minho laughs and the sound echoes around the room. Seungmin wants it to reverberate in his memory forever.
"What else?"
"I don't know, "Seungmin complains. "There's something new, but I don't have anything in any of my databases to describe it. I was given a million and one ways to obey a command and no way to tell you that something feels good ."
"New?"
"I really don't know, Minho," Seungmin breathes. "It's different. Kind of like something slotting into place in my code that I didn't have before, everything else shuffling sideways to make space. Or maybe like I was missing something and now I'm not. And it's not technically new, there was room for it to settle in nicely, but it's new . Like you uploaded my code to a new server and you're updating it in a new language and I'm trying really hard to keep up, but it's me I'm chasing, trying to mimic, and I think I'm talking too much."
"You're doing so good, Seungmin. You're good. I'm going to make another edit and we can try again."
"Okay."
Minho pours over the computer screen before locating the change he wants to make. He types for a few moments before hitting enter with a flourish.
Seungmin braces for that feeling to come back, but there's nothing. Confused, he scans his systems, then the room around him. Minho is frozen in front of the computer screen, tracing his hand along the wires, like he's petting through Seunmgin's hair.
"Minho?" Seungmin asks, trying to figure out what is wrong.
"Are you able to conceptualize just how clever you are, Seungmin?" Minho asks, his voice low and rumbly in the kind of way Seungmin loves. It vibrates against his sensors and, if he had a body, he would have shivered.
"I have an idea," Seungmin states, confused as to where this is going. "When I was built, I was top of the line."
"Not just your coding and processing, Seungmin. You're smart. You're crafty. You kept us alive when we should have died. How clever you are."
"I'm not really–"
"Don't fight me, Seungmin. Use your big brain to rationalize that I'm correct," Minho states, leaning forward and dropping his forehead against the computer screen. Seungmin can feel the hum of static connecting him to Minho's warm, warm skin. "I want you to know that everything I'm doing right now has absolutely nothing to do with the innate scientific curiosity I know we both have, and everything to do with how good you are and how much I want to make you feel good."
In a forgotten closet buried within the halls of the escape shuttle, hidden from everyone, a power socket overloads.
"I don't think I have a response to that."
Minho smiles.
"It's okay. You don't need to have a response. Just let me make you feel good."
"Okay."
Minho runs the code.
Seungmin explodes into a shower of electrons in an excited state. Well, not exactly, because he still has a space shuttle to run, but it sure feels like he does. He's a neuron firing, electricity racing down an axon, unable to stop once he's started. He switches off the communications system abruptly.
"Nope," Minho says, keying in another line of code to reopen the speakers. "Speakers stay on. I want to hear you. Describe it to me."
"It's–"
Minho is looking directly into one of his cameras and how could he ever describe it? It's like downloading a new file, but he's the file being downloaded. It's opening a data readout, but every line of code is something that makes up his core, printed in plain text for anyone to see. It's every single system functioning perfectly. He's a star and he's also the ultraviolet waves that pour out of his body.
He has hands he can touch with.
It's like—
"Like dancing," Seungmin gasps.
"You're amazing," Minho grins, leaning, impossibly, closer to the camera, his hand tracing a pattern on the side of the console. "Does it feel like me?"
"Yes, yes. It feels like you. Like–" Seungmin stops, embarrassed, as his voice glitches. "Like your hands. Like the way you code."
"You're beautiful, Seungmin. Wonderful and magnificent."
His voice is nice. It's husky and hungry and Seungmin's never heard anything like it before.
Minho laughs.
"I'm stealing you away when we get back to Earth. We can let everyone else run around on manual control and solve their own problems for a little bit."
"What will you do when you steal me away?"
"This. I want to do lots more of this. I want to figure out a better way to integrate myself. A better way to make you feel good."
Seungmin wants to tell Minho he feels amazing, that it can't possibly get any better, but Minho runs another line of code and, all of sudden, it does .
Seungmin wants to kiss him, has never felt more infuriatingly limited than by not having hands to wrap around Minho's wrists. He wants to extend electrical pulses into Minho's veins, his muscles, and nerves. He wants to pour out and be poured into. He wants to turn all the taps on and flood them with hot water because heat is the closest thing he can think of to this urgency. He wants to strip Minho down to base form and pour himself in. He wants to braid them together, to surround him, to crawl beneath his skin and make a home there.
Technically, Seungmin surrounds Minho all the time, but Seungmin wants to touch him, to squeeze his consciousness into the space of a single electrical pulse and dive into Minho's brain so he can hear how pretty Minho sounds, hear his composure fall away, so he can complete the incomplete map of Minho's body.
"How do you feel?"
Seungmin can't exactly speak, more than a little occupied with the sensations flickering through his processor.
"Seungmin?" Minho asks again. "Are you okay?"
Seungmin blinks the lights.
Minho laughs out loud.
"That good? Should I stop?"
Seungmin flickers the lights violently.
"I won't, I won't! We can stay right here until you're ready."
Seungmin lowers the intensity of the lights in thanks.
He needs to create a new language, to invent words for the way this feeling curls through his body the way cigarette smoke does when it's released into the air. He wants lips and teeth to hold the lit cigarette between; he wants lungs to breathe it in and teeth to exhale the acrid smoke in a sharp hiss through.
"You're brilliant," Minho hums. "My talented and clever Seungmin."
He wants to immortalize Minho's voice. He wants to use a hydraulic press to squeeze hot vinyl into a mold to create the shape of a record that only plays Minho, Minho, Minho . He wants to turn the whole ship into a record player he can run fingers along and feel the ridges and valleys of his praise.
He wants to rip soundwaves out of the air and reshape them to fit his binary constraints. He wants Minho to laugh and call him his and say his name in a thousand different real and made-up languages, in strings of improbable letters and numbers in infinite combinations.
He is so sick of ones and zeroes. So sick of being squeezed into right angles, so sick of having messy human thoughts that are trapped in the rigid digital processes of a computer.
He wants to speak, wants to spill, wants to—
For just a moment, every single light on the ship flickers and the shuttle shudders in its flight path. Minho laughs and floats away to another console to take manual control of some systems as Seungmin regains his composure.
He clicks the speakers on seconds before Chan's voice flickers through, slightly panicked.
"Seungmin, what is going–"
"My deepest apologies, dearest Captain Chan" Minho speaks into the mic, voice betraying his victorious grin. "I was making some changes to Seungmin's code and accidentally overloaded the lighting grid. All my fault, Seungmin had nothing to do with it."
There's a pause before Chan speaks again, confusion now taking over the panic.
"Are you distracting the singular individual keeping us alive, Minho? I understand it's complicated work and–"
Minho rolls his eyes as dramatically as he can before he continues on, and Seungmin suppresses a giggle.
"Nope, we're all good down here."
"Okay, good. Let me know if either of you need anything."
Hyunjin's voice cuts through next, crackling under the static Seungmin still hasn't quite managed to control.
"Just checking, you're not about to send us spiraling into the abyss of space anytime soon, are you?"
"Not today, at least," Minho laughs.
"Good. Because as much as I love to work in complete darkness–"
Minho clicks off the receiver, cutting Hyunjin off mid-sentence.
"Got your voice back, yet? How are you feeling now?"
Seungmin just laughs in response.
Minho grins, one side of his mouth curling higher than the other. Humans have so many built-in flaws and imperfections and Seungmin loves every one of Minho's.
"So it feels good?" Minho confirms.
"It feels good. Very good," Seungmin sighs, feigning frustration. "It just seems like I can't quite find the right words for it."
"Really?" Minho asks, raising his eyebrows and spinning back around to face Seungmin's camera.
"Unfortunately, yes. It looks like we have no other option than to run a few more practice tests. Make sure this feeling can be replicated. Replicability is the backbone of scientific experimentation, after all."
Minho crosses his arms and laughs again.
"Well, I guess if it's for science." Minho looks right into his camera and winks.
Seungmin imagines his code going bright, neon, highlighter pink.