Summary: Ficlet response to the prompt "our common goal was waiting for the world to end". Originally posted to livejournal 9.25.10
He isn't sure when it happened, when the memory of pleading with his mother to stop it - to save him - became vague and distant, or when the dread and denial slipped away to reveal something he supposes could be called acceptance. (Sarah's battle rages on, fiery hot even without his childish need as fuel, and at some point he stopped noticing that too; his mother's war on the periphery of his mind.)
He can't remember when he stopped protesting on the nights Cameron infiltrates his bedroom.
She climbs into his bed and onto him, thin and strong, pinning him down. Long limbs stretch and tangle with his, trapping him beneath smooth skin and long hair that sweeps against him. She finds him lost and brings him home with her, between childish sheets and warm machine-girl.
He thinks he can see the future in those moments, when her body presses hard, unyielding against him, a silent battle between metal and bone, a push and pull and it feels so damn good be able to hold tight to something without it breaking.
It isn't romantic, this test of pleasure and pain, this provocation. He knows why she does it, knows what her mission is and he knows why he lets her. The world is burning and he can smell the smoke and death with every breath and for the first time, it doesn't terrify him the way it probably should and maybe this is what it means to grow up.
They're a fight in the shadows, man and machine, unnatural to the core as they burn hot and then cold. They're the battle before the war, racing for the finish line.
The future is coming.