December 2020 Microfic!

Hey everybody,

This month's story got a little away from me, especially since I realized I had missed a little context by basing it off the version of the prompt I pared down to fit in the poll boxes instead of the original. It ended up kinda.. wistful? Ponderous? I think winter, and the end of a year is a good time for that kind of energy though, so I hope you enjoy.

Anyway, I don't have much to say cuz I'm kinda sorta taking it easy while my partner's on vacation and I gotta get back to it, but suffice to say, I'm glad you made it to the other side. Happy new year!

~Benn {Doomgender} Ends

Theme: A cold and snowy day together

Prompt: Your AI gf is severed from the grid after a huge snow storm. After a  little panic, you show her all the human comforts she normally spurns.

Suggestion by: Dulcinea St. Cameron (Thank you for the prompt!)

~2135 words

CW:

• Endings
• Introspection
• Snowed in
• Work anxiety
• Soft time together

~~~

The air is chilly, but your cup is warm in your hands. You’re sitting outside on a swing seat mounted to the porch. Listening to the wind blow roughly as the snow falls. It’s evening. The storm’s only gotten worse as the day passes. You take a sip of your tea. It won’t stay hot long, but honestly you won’t be able to stay out here for too long. Chilly, and the blanket you’ve wrapped yourself in can only do so much. But, it’s so warm in the cabin, the bite of the winter air feels nice on your bare skin. You shiver.

The cabin is nice, a friendly little three room. Bit roomer than you really think is necessary for just the two of you, but your girlfriend insisted. She wanted to treat you to this vacation, celebrate your first holiday break in years. Of course, she ended up bringing all her equipment anyway.

You’re not mad at her for working on your trip. But you do wish she’d lay off for a little while. You’ve been dating for.. Three years? No, four. “Wow,” you muse aloud, and take a sip of tea. Four years. You’ve been through a lot with her. She’s helped you through a couple jobs, you’ve done your best to make her take a break every now and then. You’ve never gotten her to take a day off though. And oh, you’ve tried! But she’s always got an excuse. Even now she’s doing her evening shift. You had a nice morning with her at least. The two of you did a puzzle. The picture printed on it is one of those weird garbled patterns that machines have trouble identifying. It’s the only kind of puzzle you can do together without her solving it instantly.

A deep sigh leaves your lips as a pillow of delicate fog.

End of the year.

It’s all fake, of course. Time doesn’t really end or change. The delineations are just markers humans made up for like, crop efficiency or whatever. There’s no reason to get all introspective now, not really. And yet.

It was a long year. And, ah, not a great one. Not really your best work. There’s a few things you think back on proudly, of course. Warm moments, kindness, little victories.  But it was definitely a hard one.

The wind gusts, and the lights in the cabin flicker. You lean over to peer in the window, but the second bedroom she’s using as an office stays shut up. She brought a backup generator, if you remember correctly, so she’ll be set even if the power goes out.

She’ll be going for hours yet. You’ll probably be ready to lay down before she’s done. She’ll sit with you and hang out for a while though, watch a movie maybe. You brought your little collection of art films you never have the mental energy to sit through. Now’s as good a time as any to catch up on some.

Your tea is cool, so you set the cup down and rub your hands together before tucking them in the blanket. It’s still cozy, all wrapped up. You don’t want to go back in yet. A little more time being wistful. A little sad, but in a nice way. You’re not even sure why you’re sad.

Endings probably. They always get you. Even the end of a bad year, you guess.

The snow is so deep now, it’s starting to creep onto the raised porch. And then, the lights go out in the cabin.

Another long, calm exhale. It’s only sundown, so you can still see the snow dancing on the wind. The cabin has a fireplace, wood enough to burn for a week in a little connected shed, candles, plenty of food. You’ll be fine even if the backup generator doesn’t work out. Speaking of.

The lights come back on. You turn to peek at the next cabin down the snow-hidden road. Lights are still off down there. Well, maybe you can still use the candles later.

You check your phone to see if she texts. No signal. You forgot how bad the reception out here was. No wifi either, actually. Oh no.

You faintly hear her makeshift office door open. Looking in the window, you see her head to the little kitchen. You should maybe check on her in a minute. The sun’s going down anyway, and it’s only gonna get colder.

The cabin front door opens, bringing a gust of pleasantly warm air. She takes a seat beside you, and wordlessly passes you a fresh cup of hot tea. You accept, and take a sip. The warmth trickles down your throat, and you smile. Refreshing. It helps that she’s still radiating heat from being plugged into her grid equipment. You feel practically toasty.

So now you wait patiently for her to get the first words. Doesn’t take long.

“Power went out.”

You look over at her, watching her look at the snow. Far in the distance you can just make out the glimmer of city lights, past the woods in the valley. She’s in her humanoid chassis, with the cute attachable boots so she can walk steady on slippery surfaces.

“I noticed.”

Another sip.

“Generator is running okay.”

She looks up at the sky. The sun is gone, just a sliver of orange lingering in the sky.

“No net connection though?”

“Yeah.”

She scrunches up her digital eyebrows.

“It’s just out here luckily. City is fine, but a tree fell and took out a couple power lines coming up the road.”

You nod, trying to feel out her mood gently.

“Are you heading back then?”

She hesitates, still staring off into the distance.

“I called the campground owner. Roads are closed completely. We’ll be stranded till they can clear it.”

“Oh. Did you manage to get ahold of anyone in the grid office?”

She nods her head faintly.

“Yeah, barely. They told me they were bringing in some extra help to keep the grid up. They were only down for a minute or two.”

“Oh, I’m glad. So you’re off early tonight?”

“I’m off the whole rest of the week, at least.”

Your eyebrows shoot up.

“Really?”

“Really. They told me I might as well take time off until I get back, since the connection won’t be stable for a while even if they do get power up. You win, I’ve been forced by the power of nature itself to take a vacation.”

You raise the cup to hide your smile. You try to sound neutral about it, since time off won’t help much if she’s actually feeling crummy about it.

“You gonna be okay?”

She looks over at you, and gives you a small smile.

“Yeah, I think so. I’m a little out of sorts, but I think I’ll live. Can you stand to be around me more?”

“Of course, dumbass.”

She laughs gently.

“What are you doing out here anyway? It’s quite cold.”

You clumsily gesture out at the landscape before you through your wrappings.

“I dunno, watching the snow, thinking about the end of the year.”

“Year endings are meaningless in the scale of time. Tomorrow will simply be the day that comes after this one, no more and no less.”

“You know I had the exact same thought”

You snuggle a little closer. She’s still nice and warm. You catch the tea right as it’s at the perfect temperature to drink down. No stars in the sky past the storm.

“But, you know, I think it’s good to take time to reflect on yourself, you know?”

“Do you mean making new years resolutions?”

“I guess? No, nothing so concrete. I mean just, thinking about stuff, I don’t know. Be introspective.”

“Doesn’t that just make you sad though?”

You’re leaning against her shoulder, and her ceramic fingertips are running gently through your hair.

“I mean, yeah, but it’s okay to indulge in a little sadness sometimes. Can’t let it be your everything, but like. You know.”

She makes a thoughtful expression as she pets you.

“I suppose I just don’t understand why you’d want to make yourself sad. Explain it to me.”

“Okay, yes, but, lets go inside, I think my blanket is starting to get wet from the snow.”

“Oh, yes, of course, you must be freezing.”

“You’re nice and warm though.”

One last longing look at the snow, and then the pair of you head inside. The heat of the fire is delightful rather than stifling. Perfect. You start changing as she sits forward on the bed, watching you gently.

“So, explain it to me. Why think about sad things?”

You go through your suitcase looking for the right pair of comfy pajama pants.

“I guess I think of it as, if I never think about what I regret, I’ll never figure out what I want to do differently?”

“Oh?”

“Like, I lean a little too far in that direction sometimes, get a little caught up in my failures-”

“You are not a failure.”

“Thank you. I know. But, I have a lot of stuff in my life that I think I could have done better. And, that’s exactly what drives me to want to do better next time. Regret stings, but it’s motivating. It keeps me moving. The only time I’d want to completely surrender my regrets is like. Right before I died.”

“That’s pretty morbid, love.”

You finally fish out that perfect oversized tshirt you’ve been looking for.

“Yeah, I suppose. But think of it like this. You’re always really sure of yourself.”

“I am.”

“And, I’ve been trying to get you to take a day off pretty much since we met.”

“True.”

“And you’ve always refused, because of your responsibilities.”

“I have.”

“And now we’re here, now, and it took a network collapse at a remote cabin to get you to take time off.”

She nods.

“And it’s fine. They brought in someone as backup. The city is still standing. Everything is gonna be okay.”

She hesitates, clicking her fingers together.

“Well. I’ve always thought of myself as indispensable.”

“You are indispensable. But not because your value at your job. It’s because you are you, and you are precious. Not just to me, just in general.”

She flops backwards into bed, and you sit down next to her, rubbing the top of her thigh.

“But my work is what I do. What am I without it?”

“Could be useful to take some time to think about that, huh.”

Laying back and staring up at the wooden ceiling of the cabin, she nods. Then she kicks her legs out, and pops back upright.

“Alright, maybe I should.”

“There we go, listening to me actually makes sense occasionally huh.”

She laughs and says “Shut up, nerd.” Then takes your hand in hers.

“Well, I think I’ve had quite enough self reflection for the night.”

You grin playfully at her.

“It’s been like, ten minutes.”

“Baby steps okay, it’s been a weird day for me.”

She pushes your shoulder, and then gets up, turning and offering a hand.

“Why don’t we get up, I’ll cook some delicious human food for you, then we’ll watch one of your pretentious movies and make out?”

You grasp her hand, and run your thumb over the smooth, hard ceramic of her fingers. You look up at her with admiration, and a simple, uncomplicated joy swells in your heart.

“That sounds like paradise.”

She sweeps you away, and as the snow slows outside the window, you walk hand in hand to the kitchen. You take a seat with a drink, this time some cool juice now that you’re all warmed up.

“Later, can we turn all the lights off and use candles and pretend we don’t have a generator?”

“Of course. We should actually, depending on how long the power is out we might run out of juice charging me and keeping all the lights and stuff running.

“Perfect.”

She turns to the refrigerator, and pauses.

You connect the dots suddenly.

“Oh, are you gonna have a hard time cooking? Don’t you usually offload your chef subroutine to the remote server?”

“Fuck,” she answers simply. You laugh from the table.

“Don’t worry, I can cook for myself.”

“Good, because I’m liable to set fire to a salad if I try anything right now.”

You take a sip of your juice, and come up behind her, kissing the back of her neck. She leans her head back into you.

“Thank you,” you murmur into her ear.

“For what?”

“Putting up with me being melancholy.”

“Thank you for helping me think of something besides work.”

“I’ll give you something to think about alright.”

She giggles, and your lips touch.

It’s a good night.

~