#they end up getting foreceful towards the end cause it’s not fair

[dollyichi]

the voices in me the parasites the DEMONS

[lili-typos]

Josh Appreciation Week - Day 5: Happiness

It’s been a while

“That’s not fair, Sam! I have seen it before!”

“Come on, Lena, you already have a bunch of things! It’s my turn now”

“You have a lot of things too!”

“But I just have one toy! I want this one so that it has a friend, so let me have it!

“No”

“Yes”

“NO”

“YES”

“NO NO NO NO”

“YES YES YES YE--”

“Okay, what’s going on here?”

The two YK500 child androids stopped fighting immediately when Josh approached them with his hands on his hips. One of the children was sustaining a rather old bunny toy by its legs while the other did it by its ears, almost wrestling to keep it, and probably if Josh hadn’t appeared at that moment, the poor stuffed animal would have ended torn off.

“So?”, Josh inquired, looking at the children alternatively, “what’s the problem?”

The children interchanged an angry glance and, predictably, both of them began to speak at the same time, causing Josh to raise his index finger in the air.

“Ah ah, one at a time, please. Lena, you first”

Josh more or less managed to make both children to take turns in explaining what had happened. He listened to their arguments in silence, allowing them to speak all they wanted, and just then he decided to talk.

“Very well, I have understood the problem. And I know how to solve it”

Both Sam and Lena looked at Josh expectant, obviously waiting to be the one PJ500 chose to have the toy.

“Since both of you already have one toy...”, Josh gently took the stuffed animal and the children followed Josh’s movement with their eyes, “...I think it’s better if we give it to another child that doesn’t have any”

Josh was expecting too when Sam and Lena began to protest, so he crouched in front of them.

“Because…”, the children immediately shut up when Josh’s tone became a little sad, “...there are children that are still recovering from their stay in the camps”

Sam and Lena gulped when hearing Josh, so the PJ500 left the bunny on the ground next to him with delicacy before taking Sam and Lena’s hands respectively.

“And right now, they need all the help we can offer them. And I really think that if you both go to visit them and lend them that toy, even if it’s just for a while…”, Josh smiled at them, “...they will get better”

This time, Sam and Lena interchanged a look that was hesitant at first, but almost immediately they smiled at each other, looked at Josh again and nodded with energy, causing the J500 to chuckle before dragging the children towards him in a tight hug that they effusively returned.

“Thank you”, Josh said sincerely, standing up with the toy before offering it to the children again, “would you like to deliver it to the children yourselves?”

Sam and Lena nodded again and reached for the toy at the same time, but this time instead of fighting to have it Sam took the bunny’s right arm while Lena took the left and together abandoned the room in such a hurry that they almost stomped against North, who had about to enter the room.

“Hey, be careful, you little demons!”

The children apologized but the cheery ‘sorry’ that they said while laughing made the apology lose part of its effect.

“Don’t try it, North”, Josh joked, “your bad aura just works with adults. Children are able to see that deep inside you are a softi-ouch!”

“Who are you calling softie, you idiot?”

“North, it was a compliment”, Josh protested while rubbing his arm in the place North had hit him.

“Not for me”

North shook her head towards the door and after sighing with patience Josh followed the female deviant, who was also suppressing a smile, out of the room.

Two weeks had passed since the revolution ended and while Markus and Connor, who was on their side now, negotiated with the President Warren about their rights, the deviants had installed in several abandoned buildings on the outskirts Detroit.

It was something provisional until they had a legal right to own a home, but Josh found himself pretty satisfied for now. After all, compared to Jericho where they had been forced to live hidden without being able to see the sunlight, now they could go outside whenever they wanted. Of course they had suffered some incidents of anti-android people that had tried to sneak to throw them things and insult them, but it was nice to see that there were other people that supported them, and that also approached to help them and offer them supplies.

Everything was changing. Slowly, that was true, but it was a start.

“By the way, you haven’t told me where we are going”

“It’s a surprise”, North snorted when Josh looked at her with scared eyes, “fuck, can you just relax? For once if something bad”

“Are you sure? Because I haven’t recovered from you last ‘surprise’”

“Come on, it wasn’t that bad”

“…”

“What? You are a history freak, so I thought you would like to know that there were some pretty old documents on one of the basements!”

“Oh, and I liked the documents. But I could have lived without the damn room collapsing, almost burying me alive”

“And how the heck was I going to know that?! Don’t you dare to blame me for it!”

“I don’t! I just say that I would very much prefer not to have more surprise of that kind and…”

…and Josh shut up, mouth falling opened in disbelief while looking at an specific spot next to one of the demolished buildings.

“See?”, North crossed her arms with a smile, “I told you it was a good surprise”

Josh didn’t say anything. He was busy staring at the woman who was waiting for him sitting on a bench outside the building, with an adorable two years-old baby sitting on her lap.

“Hey”, the woman carefully left her daughter on the floor and stood up, “it’s been a while…professor Josh”

Josh gulped, not knowing well how to react at first, but when the woman smiled in that familiar shy way all his hesitation disappeared and he approached in a couple of rapid steps to hug her with forec.

“Dominika”

The woman chuckled with astonishment.

“You still remember me”

It was Josh’s turn to chuckle while separating a little to look at the young woman.

“Of course I do. You were the only person who saw that I was more than a simple machine, even before than myself”, Josh’s tone turned apologetic, “At the moment I didn’t realize it, but after waking up I remembered that you were always alone. People called you ‘the android freak’ for defending me when no one else did”, Josh’s tone kept sounding guilty but also grateful, “thank you. You don’t have any idea of how much what you did for me then has helped me now”

Dominika gulped, clearly moved by Josh’s words.

“It’s funny you say that”, Dominika took her daughter’s hand while this one kept looking up at Josh with curiosity, “because I’ve come here to thank you”

Josh looked at the woman with surprise, but before he could ask anything she continued, her non-American accent more evident with the rapid way she was talking.

“When I heard about what those students did to you, I feared the worst. I thought you were dead. But when the androids began the revolution, something inside me told me you were with them. And then I saw you in the march, in first line leading the rest of deviants, and decided that as soon as I could I had to see you again to thank you for choosing a pacific revolution. For not giving up on us”, Dominka’s smile widened while taking one of Josh’s hands in hers, “I couldn’t be more proud when I told my daughter that the man leading the march and bringing hope to human and androids was my teacher”

Josh didn’t realize he was silently crying until his vision got suddenly blurry.

However, unlike the other times he had cried to let out his pain, the tears that covered now his eyes were different, warmer, because they had been provoked for his former students’ kind words. Words that were the proof that Josh hadn’t been mistaken, that all the sacrifices hadn’t been for nothing, that there were nice people like Dominika who believed in them and were ready to fight by their side.

“Please, tell me something: Josh was such a crybaby when he was a teacher?”

Josh turned towards North with a glare while Dominika began to laugh, but when seeing the way North was teasingly smirking at him Josh couldn’t pretend to be annoyed and ended chuckling too while removing his remaining tears with the tissue the young woman offered him.

Yes, that kind of tears were good.

Because they were born from happiness.