AN: A little less humor, a little more angst this time around.
It wasn't kissing. Not really. That's the first coherent thought that Razer formed after the shock wore off. Aya had plied his lips open and was simply wiggling her tongue around in his mouth, in her attempt to prove a point. Razer's right arm came to rest on the back of her head, and nudged it a bit to a better angle. He imposed a slower rhythm and thankfully Aya emulated his every move.
Now it was kissing. And kissing Aya, for all the times he fantasized about it, was different than anything he thought it would be like. She was solid, and yet she wasn't. The hard-light had taste and yet it didn't. His skin and his mouth felt tingly where they came into contact with Aya's form. It was a good kind of tingly, the feeling of warmth on your skin after spending too much time in the cold. It was like... trying to taste a sun beam, Razer thought.
Suddenly, Aya's communicator beeped. She jumped off and answered with an even voice.
"Yes", she answered, her back turned to Razer.
"Aya, we need you at the launch pad", Hal Jordan's voice was heard.
"I'm on my way", the android replied.
She turned around to face Razer who was currently trying to get his heartbeat under control and asked:
"Do you have sufficient empirical evidence to continue without me?"
"Wha... Yes, yes, I think you made your point." he answered bewildered.
She gave him a court head-nod and then looked like she wanted to say something else. Razer got up and walked over to a window. For some reason he felt a surge of emotion, the bad kind.
"Just like that, she's gone. She's going to take what she wants and then she'll be gone", he thought to himself and felt a mix of embarrassment and anger rising up inside of him .
She was still standing there.
"What!" he snapped.
"I can tell you're angry with me... but I don't know how to proceed"
"You can leave", he said sternly.
He sighed and turned towards her, with a softer look and a softer tone:
"Leave. You're needed elsewhere. We... we'll resume tomorrow"
She accepted that and did leave. He followed her with his eyes through the window, staring at her shrinking form. Sighed one last time and went back to work.
Later that night
Another night of tossing in the sheets, while his mind was filled with schematics and formulas. He managed to finish the subroutines, but the next day would provide the biggest challenge. Now that Aya had the basic form and the programming there was one more vital element to be added to the mix.
A knock on the door. Given it was the dead of night, there was only one person that could be on the other side.
"Come in, Aya" he shouted and propped himself up, leaning against the head board.
Aya entered the suite and the door slided behind her.
"You're not resting"
"Very observant of you. I haven't really been sleeping much since this whole thing started"
"I'm... sorry"
"Don't worry about it. I'll sleep when I'm dead"
"Don't say that" she said and Razer could swear he detected a twinge of desperation in her voice.
"Sorry. It's just an expression"
"I wanted to apologise for my behaviour earlier today"
Again, Aya was doing that thing where she seemed like a bashful girl unsure what to say next. Razer would've loved to know whether it was real or whether it was some programming trick she did to make the person she's talking to more at ease. Not that he'd ever accuse her of being deceiving, but it was hard to tell where her programming stopped and her actual personality began.
Razer sighed and scooted over on his bed, patting the empty spot, signaling Aya to come sit there. She hesitated.
"Come on Aya, you need to get used to beds if you want to climb into them" he said with a nastier subtext then he planned. Aya didn't seem to notice his irony and got in bed next to him, leaning on the headboard with her hands in her lap.
"You were saying?"
"I wanted to apologise for invading your personal space and your oral cavity 4 hours, 54 minutes and 35 seconds ago"
"Can we not say that you invaded my oral cavity, that sounds a lot worse than what it actually was"
"Regardless... You were just telling me how vital self-control is, otherwise I might hurt people. I'd never want to hurt you, Razer"
"You didn't hurt me. I'm fine"
"And yet you were angry with me after the violation"
"Please, could you stop using words like violation and invading. I am a Red Lantern. I get angry. It's what we do. Okey, it was a little unnerving, but you made your point and it forced me to reconsider our end-objective"
"Please elaborate"
"Yes. Since you came to me with your... request... I was obsessed with trying to make you as close to a humanoid female as possible. But now I realise, that after this is over and you are ready to let somebody into your electronic heart and your... whatever else... They're not going to want to be with you because you resemble a humanoid female. They'll want you because you're you. It's as simple as that"
Aya listened intently, her blue eyes glinting as she processed what Razer was saying. She turned away, and a small smile tugged at the side of her lips, Razer was pleased to note. It quickly vanished though.
"I also don't believe I properly explained my motives for pursuing this course of action" she said looking away.
"Didn't you say you wanted to be a better Green Lantern?"
"That is a secondary objective. My main motives are not quite so selfless"
She finally turned her head and looked Razer in the eyes.
"When I came online, I didn't really devote any of my resources to understanding the concept of 'death'. And even when it became obvious it's a part of any individual's existence, I still couldn't conceptualize a state where I would not exist. After recent events, after our incursion on Shard and after... Drusa nearly deleted me, death is not as abstract an idea as it used to be. My existence has finality. One day I will end, I will no longer be. I am not scared of it, but what I am scared of is not living. When the final day comes, I don't want to regret not looking past my own preset condition. Does that make me selfish?"
"No, that just makes you sentient"
The android nodded her head to express her gratitude for the reassurance the Red Lantern provided.
"I don't suppose today's events helped the odds for our friendship's survival " she asked.
"I don't know... I have no idea what I'm feeling these days".
He rubbed his eyes slumped down in the bed. It was Aya's turn to sigh, mimicking a gesture she had seen Razer perform countless times by now. She got off the bed and flew into the bathroom.
"Do you need to pee?" Razer asked bewildered.
"No... I'm bringing you a glass of water" she said exiting the bathroom with... a glass of water in her hand, which she placed on the bedside table.
"Wha.. why?"
"It just seems like the type of gesture a friend might perform. Good night Razer" she wished him and turned to leave.
In the morning...
Razer woke up completely rested, to his utter astonishment. By the looks of things he had been asleep for 12 hours. He usually never slept that long or that deep, and he hadn't even been bothered by his usual nightmares. Something was fishy... a green kind of fishy. He looked at the halfdrunk glass of water on the bedtable. He used his ring to analyze the content of that glass.
Of course, the little robot minx had used a sedative on him. He would be outraged, if he wasn't so damn impressed. And grateful...
AN: Once again i must say how much I appreciate everybody's reviews, favourites and such? Like I said, when I first got the idea, I thought they're gonna throw the book at me for this one. Razaya is a "cutsey" pairing, and I have my own cutsey fanfic, but I believe these characters can be explored in a whole manner of ways.