ship haljake / jakehal
word count 5,164 for now
chapters 1/?
warnings zombie apocalypse! au-typical violence, future smut
rated m for now, will be e later
When Jake breaks his arm in the middle of the apocalypse - his good shooting arm - he is rendered useless among his friends. Doomed to sit it out inside an empty research facility, he only has an ill-tempered, solar-powered AI to talk to.
ship haljake / jakehal
word count 759
warnings nah
rated T? for language i guess
prompt word was “challenge”
The best thing about corporeal existence, if you ask Hal, is all the dumb shit he can get up to now. He has always found beauty in proving other people wrong -- and considering the concern everyone seemed to harbor in some way, about him going rogue and obliterating humanity as soon as he acquired a pair of hands he could make people catch… Well, considering that, it does feel pretty beautiful to him that all he gets up to now is ill-advised acrobatics that hurt nobody but himself.
Actually, Hal usually manages to turn off his pain perception just in time, and then Dirk is the one that has to sit down with a heavy sigh and fix whatever he broke with his most recent stunt. So really, what he does with his body doesn’t hurt anyone, except for Dirk, and Dirk doesn’t exactly matter, so it’s fine.
Right now, he has no face.
He has one, normally. A good, human-looking face, with nice skin imitation and pretty features, looking similar to Dirk’s but not the same. It’s a nice face. Hal likes it. But it’s gone now.
Smeared into the grass of the hill he just slid down on.
It was masked as a dare -- Jake telling him to ride a skateboard down this slope even when they both knew it’s way too grassy to make the wheels work for more than two feet, at best. Jake likes posing him challenges, likes to see how far he can push him now that he’s got bodily autonomy. He likes proving that he’s still better at climbing and jumping and spelunking and anything fun, and Hal? Hal just likes making him laugh.
“Holy fucking crumbs,” Jake says loudly. He is not laughing, not quite, but he’s getting there, Hal can tell. It’s in his voice, and the corners of his mouth are twitching when he comes closer, carefully sliding down the last few feet of the hill and crouching down where Hal is sprawled out in the dirt. Hal can see him just fine. His eyes are still lodged firmly in his head, even if he thinks the lenses might have gotten a little scratched up. Dirk’s gonna hate that.
“I know,” Hal says. It comes out a little weird sounding -- his voice output is fine, the speakers in his general mouth area are fine, but there are no lips to enhance the effect. He sounds a lot more robotic now. And he probably looks like a Terminator nightmare. “How you likin’ my new look?”
“Oh, it’s just about the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, Mister No Face,” Jake says, leaning in close. He’s grinning now, presumably relieved that Hal is taking it with humor. “You know, that looked really stupid, you sliding down there on your mug instead of your board. Real uncool, Hal.”
“Don’t say that,” Hal says, but it ends up muffled, because Jake is pressing his entire hand to his face.
“Wow, it’s all warm,” he says, pushing his fingers against the shredded parts of artificial skin, and the alloy underneath. Quietly, Hal turns on his touch perception again, keeping it low so he can’t feel any pain. Just Jake’s fingertips pressing into his face gently. “You look like a movie villain.”
“I thought you might say that,” Hal says, still muffled against his palm. Like he’s speaking from another room. “You know, people have also told me I behave like one.”
Jake rolls his eyes, but he laughs. There it is. “Oh, leave it out,” he says quietly. His hand slips down a bit, cupping what’s left of Hal’s banged up jaw, and his eyes flicker over his face. “I’m trying to figure out where your lips would be. This… This is the real challenge. I have it so hard.”
“Yeah, you’re a real explorer, English,” Hal says, and again, the last few syllables are muffled, but not because of any hands. As it turns out, it didn’t take Jake very long to figure out where his lips would be. Hal plays one of his quieter laugh tracks as Jake presses his mouth against the speaker in the lower third of his face. Then he quiets down and curls a hand around Jake’s neck, to make it feel at least a little more like a kiss.
“Android kisses are so fucking tubular,” Jake mutters, and to Hal’s amusement and absolute delight, he just keeps going. He’s going to get spit on the speaker membrane. Hal couldn’t care less.
ship haljake / jakehal
word count 1,069
warnings none
rated T
thief!au for the prompt word “gift”
The box is on your bedside table when you wake up. You’re sitting up, staring at it blearily, your tired mind processing what this means. Once you realize that there is a fucking box in your apartment which you didn’t bring here which means somebody broke in, you whip your head around to the window. It’s an automatic motion, and it is wide open, your curtains waving softly from the morning breeze, but you’re on the twelfth floor. There’s nobody that could climb this high and hop in through your window while you’re asleep in the same room, drop off a box right next to your head and piss off again without you noticing. That’s just not feasible.
Well, except for two people, you suppose.
One of them being you. You could do it. You’re by far the best burglar this city has to offer, if anyone were to ask you, that is. The crème de la crème. You could pull this stunt.
You, and your nemesis.
As you try to turn your head towards the cardboard box again, your gaze slips instead to the visitor in your bed. The one you actually invited. Jake is fast asleep, looking as graceless as ever. Hair tousled, mouth hanging open, stubble poking from his chin, one arm thrown over his forehead. Sunlight is creeping into the room, slow and steady, but of course that doesn’t wake him up. Of course someone coming into your goddamn apartment also didn’t wake him up.
Useless.
You were talking to him about them, last night. About your nemesis. Jake knows about your lucrative pastime, about the heists you pull in museums, banks, expensive stores around the city, sometimes around the whole state. You never tried to hide it from him, didn’t see the necessity in it. You two are… Well, you’re fucking, mostly, and if you like each other then that’s not something you ever talk about, and that gave you enough mental leverage to feel secure in telling him the truth. If he ever ratted you out, you could easily take him the fuck down. That was your stance.
And also seeing his eyes light up and his face contort into an expression of pure joy when you gave him the opportunity to loudly ramble about heist movies and how cool it is to go against the system like that… Maybe that was worth it anyway.
He’s cute. A little stupid, but cute, and good enough in bed to keep him around. Especially when he thinks that you’re the most awesome thief the world has ever seen.
And of course he also thinks that it’s, quote, bombastic that you have a nemesis. There is another thief in this town, and they’re almost as good as you, making headlines that rival yours, sometimes robbing places you had picked out just before you can go and act out your own plans. You figure it’s coincidence, there’s only so much the city has to offer after all, but it still annoys you a little. Because you could have done it better, and then they get the public reaction to a heist that you could have aced so beautifully.
You’re breaking into a museum tomorrow night, if everything goes according to plan. You told Jake about that too, enjoying the way he was lying in your bed, all fucked out and still watching you talk with bright green eyes, nodding at all the right times when you told him about the little statue you wanted to steal. It’s a depiction of Icarus, something you’ve been after for a while, something you wouldn’t even sell to anyone but keep right in your apartment. You’ve just been doting on it, and you’re going to lose your goddamn mind if that nemesis of yours somehow manages to get to it first.
Jake grunts and shifts in his sleep. You tear your gaze away from him and back to your nightstand, carefully extending one hand to touch the cardboard. The thought that this might be an assassination attempt crosses your mind briefly, until you see the little card attached to the top. It’s handwritten, but you don’t recognize the scrawl.
A gift for you!
With love,
your favorite rival.
Something in your chest budges weirdly. No, they wouldn’t try to kill you. That’s not how thief rivalries work. But then what the hell did they…
When you take a deep breath, Jake behind you sighs as well. You straighten your back and open the nightstand drawer to pull out the knife you keep there. Carefully, you cut open the packaging tape, and unfold the box with calm, but cautious fingers.
It’s Icarus.
It’s… It’s your statue.
You open your mouth, as if to ask him, where the fuck he came from, how the fuck he got here. Your fingers feel numb when you take him, examining with wide eyes -- it’s the real deal, it’s the exact thing you were planning to steal tomorrow. In mint condition. Right here, in your hands.
You hear Jake shift again, and freeze.
You told nobody else about how much you want this. You’ve never even targeted the museum. There was no way for your nemesis to know that it’s this precise Icarus you’ve been wanting to steal for ages. The only one you ever told ---
“So?” Jake says behind you. You flinch more at how deep and raspy his voice gets in the morning than at the cold realization running down your spine. His lips are chapped when they press against the nape of your neck warmly. “Is it everything you dreamed of?”
You turn, just a bit, just enough to look at him. The morning sun is illuminating him from behind, shining through his dark locks like a halo. Your mouth is still open. “You,” is all you get out, accusatory, and Jake laughs. He pecks another kiss to your cheek and then drops on his back so heavily it makes your bed creak.
“Surprise,” he says. You watch in awe as he yawns. “Oh, I’ll go back to sleep. I had a busy night.”
You breathe in, and then you breathe in again. What the fuck.
“What the fuck,” you say.
Icarus is small and light in your hand. Jake stretches his arms above his head and gives an utterly relaxed groan as he sprawls across your mattress. He has never been more attractive.
