:Ami x Ericka: - Analog Love 1.2

Ami didn't like reminders of Earth.

But at the same time, the endless gunmetal of the lower levels wore at her.  And Ami was a machine.  She was, quite literally, built to exist without a lot of the bells, whistles, or color; a machine to be brought out, paraded around, admired, and then put back into a closet or something. 

She was built for it, but that didn't mean that she enjoyed it.

And Ericka?  The pilot wasn't made for it, but her employers treated her much as Ami's owners had: like a machine, like a tool, like a thing.

Which is why she'd been waiting behind the hotel on one of the lower-mid levels, the whole section trying so hard to mimic a city block on Earth.  Ami didn’t like it, but it was cheap and it was where the short-term spacers went to feel like they were back on terra firma, to feel like they were human.  To look at bad hotel wall art and watch awful Martian films or dramas from one of the Jovian colonies and feel like they were just normal people who didn’t spend months at a time on long-hauls in cramped conditions like the ones that had brought Ami to the station.

It was their once-a-month affirmation or celebration.  They didn't quite have a name for it (they didn't have a name for a lot of the things that passed between them), but it was a thing Ami always looked forward to.  Even if she dreaded it a little because there were always humans who didn’t care for androids, there was something so powerful about hanging on Ericka’s arm, feeling like she could be valued as an intelligence all her own.  She didn’t wait in the lobby because the first time, she’d been mistaken for someone’s lost property. 

She was glad the woman behind the counter seemed to understand that Ami was jailbroken (“not many of your sort around here.  I heard they got a colony all their own around Jupiter, though…”), but the thought of having to explain it again to someone new or of having to push away someone who thought she was an amenity of the squat hotel made her feel like her processors were filled with syrup; all gummed up and useless.

Ami couldn’t stand most humans.  The way they made their expectations and desires everyone else’s problems.  It was why she loved Ericka, loved the woman’s occasionally surly silence, her secretive ways, her constrained passions.  Coupled with her need to work extra shifts for neglectful bosses who treated her as if she were disposable, Ami had to admit the woman was almost mechanical.

But she knew how humans took that kind of compliment, so that, too, was unspoken and unnamed.

There was a shift in the dark as Ericka rounded the corner and Ami felt her eyes glowing a little brighter as the woman rushed forward, grasped Ami’s head between her hands and pulled her in for a kiss.

Everything lingered there, Ami’s processors momentarily and blissfully nonresponsive as a flood of sensation and reams of user data (not that Ericka was her user, no matter what Ami’s BIOS said) entered through Ami’s sensors.  That familiar scent of engine grease and flakes of metal, a slightly-elevated heart rate, the slightest traces of sweat—Ericka’d run straight there from work—all mingled with the familiar psi figures letting her know that Ericka’s grip on her head wasn’t a danger to her head or the skull beneath.

Oh, and also that the kiss was great.

When the kiss broke, Ericka smiled and met Ami’s glowing gaze.  “Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey,” replied Ami as she held the woman close to her.

There were probably too many things they didn’t say out loud.  But still, somehow, the messages came through loud and clear.

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Credits
Meshmod Bibliography

Ami-

Dress: MOF - Blue Don Corneo by MoogleOutFitters
Jacket: Dr. Eva Eden MeshMod Release by jormunartserpent

Ericka- (who belongs to a friend of mine)

Top: DOA5U Hitomi Costume 1 ported by zareef
Pants and Boots: Glory (Shadowrun Dragonfall) Xnalara by XeNmAs-Lara

Scene-
Scene: Pc-mpa dark alley by agekei

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Trying out the new Ericka model.  Still a work in progress, but I kind of like how she came out.  Mostly liking that she looks a bit more careworn or hard-living than did the DoA-based model.  We'll see how it works, but it's a step in the right direction.

I just realized I'd not rendered them kissing yet and how dare me, you know?