#i like binah and i like androids

[binah-beloved]

Arbiters Do Not Believe in Tears

Binah x Reader Android AU Pronouns: Gender Neutral Warnings: Descriptions of small injuries and death

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Androids do not feel. It is not an opinion, it is a fact, told constantly to everyone and anyone. Androids do not have capacity for emotions. They are here to use, to be used, to serve those who bought and own them because they can never be anything but owned. You know this. The world knows this. Everybody knows this, and those who believe otherwise are called foolish, tearing an inevitable cackling laugh from people’s throats as they slap the table, how stupid and silly, how naive! They’re words you ponder as you continue your life’s work of creating and welding and repairing, your dingy house filled with bits of metal, bobs you found tossed aside. One person’s junk is another’s treasure, although some would call you an idiot for thinking you could make something out of nothing. But nothing is never nothing. And perhaps you are an idiot, or stupid, or silly, or foolish or naive, or perhaps some combination of everything, when you pull a discarded android out under the scrapheap.

Black, gold, and porcelain, once pristine and now tarnished. The interlocked hexagons immediately mark the android as an Arbiter class, models only available to the wealthiest and most influential people. Yet this one has been thrown away and left to rot, rust decorating her elegant features, and a frown flits across your face. Someone must have been very frivolous, or perhaps very cruel, to toss aside an Arbiter android without a thought. It’s not surprising. Those types are all fat old fools, after all. Nothing to it but resources, you try to tell yourself. But your hands lay flat on the android’s shoulders and refuse to curl, taking not one bit of metal from her. The gears in your head turn, fingers tracing and examining every patch of rust and severed wire and those closed eyes, neutral and silent. “Fixable.” Your voice comes out in a whisper, carefully hefting her onto your back and hurrying away, just as the sun begins to set.

It becomes a personal project of yours, an attempt to repair a disabled Arbiter as you scrounge around for different parts to use. You’re not even sure what metal she’s made of, something high quality and cold and much, much too expensive for you to even have a chance of glimpsing, but slowly your list fills with checkmarks and new cuts join old scars on your hands from your work. Gloves cost too much, and your fingers are essentially dead in feeling anyways. The android sits on your workbench, the corpse of an effigy, and doesn’t move. In truth, you’re not expecting her to be alive. The rational part of your brain keeps repeating the facts, over and over. Clearly, she was shut down. She can’t be repaired. She will never wake up. You’re excellent at not listening to those thoughts, letting your body methodically move while you keep your mind blank apart from the spark of hope twinkling in the center. Maybe, just maybe, your skills will suffice. Maybe. There’s a twitch from her fingers, and you pause, breath dying in your chest. They move again, more this time, slowly curling and uncurling into a fist before the android’s body jolts and clicking whirs fill the room as symphonic noise. Slowly, she sits upright, and slowly, you take a few steps back, unable to keep yourself from staring as her golden earring sways. Her eyes open like a splash of midnight, and she’s staring directly back at you, voice coming out flat and cold.

“I am Arbiter model 008, designation Garion. What are your orders?” You open your mouth, then close it again, not her original owner nor another member of the elite. You could say nothing. You could simply keep your mouth shut, and she would leave as an Arbiter to find a new directive. You could turn your back and pretend like you saw nothing. But you know and she knows that there’s nowhere for her now. “…Stay a while.” And she does. She becomes a constant shadow, watching you silently from a corner in your little, decrepit house. For several days the android simply stands there, doing and saying nothing but observing your every movement. Occasionally you look up from your work, meeting her bored black gaze, and you wave. At first there’s nothing, but gradually her head tilts at your small actions and the kind smile you give her. One day, she waves back, stiff and a little awkward, but it makes you perk up nonetheless. She moves closer, more freely, beginning to explore the house when you’re bent over pieces of metal and solder, before standing directly behind you and watching you work with a flicker of interest, although she rarely answers to her designated title. Something is disconnected, unfitting, and you take to simply calling her “Dear” from the pool of sweet sincerity in your heart. You answer when she asks questions, not berating or sneering but giving her a nod and swift demonstrations and free reign to examine anything she wants. So she sits, the nameless android, and reads every book you have to offer, cold fingers tracing over one word again and again. It’s that word she holds close to her when she approaches you one day, a hint of apprehension in her eyes. 

“…I would like for you to call me Binah, from now on.” She’s amazed at her audacity to request something as an android, a tool, a weapon to be used. What’s more incredible is your response, a nod and a gentle agreement that it suits her. For the first time, Binah smiles a little. Binah is never apart from you after that. Wherever you go, she goes, even if it’s simply to find more supplies or to watch the stars come out. She’s always there, a quiet, constant presence by your side. There are flashes and glints of feeling, slowly, as she begins to separate things she likes and dislikes and learn, always learning more and more with keen interest. She likes the night sky, books, the scent of tea. She despises too much noise, too many people, those who never listen. You, she finds, she likes immensely.

She never tells you this verbally, but you know when her fingers curl around yours and your hand presses against her cool cheek, eliciting a shudder as she practically melts against your touch. Some people ask if she’s yours when they see her behind you, carefully watching for any threats. You always deny it, every time. The thought of being Binah’s owner makes your stomach turn, seeing and accompanying her during her growing sentience and awareness as an individual. But she interrupts you one day when that familiar question rises again, answering with a monotonous yes and an icy glare until the person who asked runs off in a panic. You blink, turning to look at her only for cool, heavy arms to wrap around your waist, her hand over your beating, human heart. “I am yours, and you are mine. If you will have me.” Her words are firm and laced with certainty, the gentle touch of her fingers betraying her hidden, developing emotions. You stare at Binah and merely nod, and she softens briefly to bump her forehead against yours.

You were told that androids couldn’t do a lot of things. They don’t feel, don’t form attachments, don’t understand bonds or gentleness. Everything is proven wrong, to your delight. It has never felt so good to be wrong, wrong about each “fact” that tried to force its way into your head. Wrong, except for one. Androids cannot die. Not in the way that humans do. Everyone knows this. Binah knows this. You knew this. They could be shut down, or lose their directive, but Arbiters were made to survive. You had told her about death, your fingers laced with hers during your evening walk. “Humans rot underground, but I like to think that eventually we grow into flowers again. Wouldn’t that be nice?” Yes. It would be nice. Her words go unspoken.

Binah stands in the rain, wrapped in the coat you made for her after she discarded the golden hexagons to remain with you. Of course, there’s no cold to her, but you loved and she loved the fabric, the way you would tuck yourself into the front while she was still wearing it. She idly twists her rings; one, two, three; resting on her favorite on the left hand. “I am Arbiter model 008, designation Garion. What are your orders?” Her voice is as apathetic and even as the day you first met, drizzle clouding her vision and wetting her synthetic hair. You always told her it was soft and smooth, and she couldn’t help but lean against your hands whenever you pet it. “…I am Arbiter model 008, designation Garion. What are your orders?” Her fingers lace together and grip hard, the same crushing force that has killed countless people, yet treated you so gently. She always was fond of caressing your face, feeling the way your skin dipped under her careful touch. Fascinating. Wonderful. Human.

“…I am Binah, your android. Please…” Instinctively, she reaches out for your presence, trembling minutely and unable to keep the repressed waver out of her tone. “…What are your orders…?” Androids also cannot cry. Almost none of them are made with it in mind, even less so Arbiters who are made to kill and maim. But Binah feels, and wishes that she could so. “…I miss you.” The rain weeps in exchange, and a lone android sinks to her knees in the flower field where you’re buried. 

[binah-beloved]

The android Binah post reminded me of one of the mili songs that seems to me from the pov of a robot (its not world.execute(me);) being "world.search (you);" https://youtu.be/-vlEd1Pbdxk?si=y6TZghL1cz9nC90f

(also if android Binah did learn love i feel she would use the flower line from the song)

she would, because you are like a flower, all soft and colorful and fragile. it's such a stark contrast from her cold hands, the metal and iron weaved in her body, how you're full of life and complete and growing and she is static, broken, merely awake. she could crush you so easily, make you wither away- but she doesn't want to. you repaired her when no one else would, when she was supposed to be destroyed. you gave her a home, somewhere to go when she's tired, even if she can't really get tired

you even gave her a new name- Binah. Garion just didn't suit her anymore

like a flower, who gives beauty and air and life, you give her so much and more, for no reason other than wanting to. and like a flower, Binah makes sure you're healthy and well, silently tending to any cuts and walking with you when the sun is out. her hands twitch whenever you give her a hug, at least once per day. you tell her that it comforts you, but that she's more than welcome to push you away if she desires, and when you hug her again, today, the android stiffens as usual before her arms settle gingerly around you, finally returning the gesture