A/N: Originally, I had planned to post this without an author's note at the beginning, but hey, plans change. As this is the first fic I've written in a long time, (years actually,) feedback is much appreciated – feel free to let perfectionism run wild and critique to be harsh.

This fic is dedicated to my goddess of fanfiction, PriestessofNox. You haven't read real LoSH fanfiction 'til you've read hers.

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I'm not real.

When he thinks about it, he probably views it as not human. But it's more than that – Lightning Lad isn't human, Saturn Girl isn't human – I'm not real. At some point I was Coluan, but now I'm just…fake.

I feel warm. I normally do, I have a heating system, and insulation so that my body runs smoothly. At some point after the events of Quavermass 12, he approached me. He said it had pained him to touch my body as it chilled, told me I had felt cold, metallic, unalive, and it had scared him.

He worries still, sometimes, and he looks at me as if I may randomly shut down; at one point I am sure he reached out to touch my arm just to see if he could feel a warmth through my half-organic skin. He worries. And sometimes I think him naïve. Something doesn't need to be cold to be unalive.

One of the things I really admire about him is his emotions. He feels things so thoroughly, so poignantly – his extreme empathy, his simple joy, his anger…I have yet to see him truly angry. I have seen him washed in disbelief and betrayal. I have seen him determined, grim even, but never rage. Sometime I'd like to see it, just to know what it would be like. When I ponder this I feel sick. Does something need to be alive to be twisted and wrong?

I'm jealous of those emotions. I feel, yes, but it feels wrong. Detached. Like the opposite of ghost limbs; I know it's there, sense it, perceive it, embody it, but for some reason not all of it gets through.

The worst is when I see him. When he smiles because he is happy, or relieved, when he approaches a task with that grimness, that grim determination. I want to feel his emotions, I want to embody him, to possess. I want him to want me. I want reciprocation. I crave it – I would hate myself for it. I already do.

It was always there, it must have been. There was always the admiration, the appreciation, the awe, the wide eyed wonder – my inspiration was real, right down to the brilliant blue eyes, dark mop of hair and naïve smile. An existence so absolute that I craved it's attention. I wanted him to look at me, to smile only at me…when I think of these things, I feel dark and impure.

When you really think about it, humans aren't real either. They are the organic machine, the flesh with a conscious mind – and is not that mind just a little unreal? They receive diluted and dosed programming throughout childhood, adolescence, adulthood, (media, parents, teachers, friends, enemies, random people, every possible influence,) and the rest of their lives that builds up their core programming. They feel certain things in certain situations, and react to specific actions. The mind inhabits the body, but ultimately is a program as in any A.I. incarnation. There are diseases where chemical imbalance in the brain can erase or alter who a person is – just as easily as the arrangement of a file, or the deletion. They aren't real either. So I'm less than not real?

He makes me forget that. He exists. He has to – at least I think he does. I want him to. I need that. I need that…hope? I don't know.

I need him. I do, don't I?

But then again, why would something that isn't real need anything.