I should probably post this. This is my first alternate draft for the idea behind Loops and the Human Avatar thing before I decided that story was better told from Gordon's POV.
There's a few good lines in here, so it may as well be uploaded rather than sitting in my drafts. (Ignore the grammar mistakes, my proofreader hasn't gone over it).
The original version of this was going to be focused a lot more on Henry's anxieties and what it means to doubt yourself to the point of not even having any confidence in your own abilities. When you go along with everything just to keep the peace, act just how people expect you to, at somepoint you begin to doubt what about yourself, it anything, is the real you.
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It wasn't that Henry didn't like Gordon, that was as far from the truth as it could be, but he just want sure if he loved Gordon the way that Gordon loved him. Engines shouldn't be able to feel love. That was a fact, something he had always known.
Engines shouldn't have wants. Engines shouldn't have desires. Engines should be nothing more than servants to their drivers.
Gordon, of course, had all of these ideas, and Henry warned him that ideas were dangerous. Ideas were how you ended up getting yourself bricked into tunnels and getting abandoned. Ideas were how you got yourself embarrassed infront of everybody. Ideas were dangerous, and that was all there was to it, and it didn't matter how or why they were carried out.
Once upon a time, Henry had been a proud engine. Broken and faulty, but still proud. Time and experience had dulled that pride until it only existed as a jagged knife, often turned inwards to insult himself but never outwards.
There was no point being proud. Not anymore.
And back then, all that he had wanted was to stay looking proud, looking good, all so that you couldn't look harder and find the broken thing that lay beneath the facade. For he was a broken engine, saved by necessity alone. He would have asked Gordon if he had broke down on purpose that day, but even he knew that was a step too far. Once upon a time they'd all had to prove their worth constantly to stay alive. Things had been different then.
For a further insult they had painted him blue, making him like everyone else. There was nothing to be proud of when it showed up how he fell short mode than his green paint ever had.
They didn't value individuality. Not back then.
Gordon's ideas, they saw him as something worthy, something better than good. Henry had never been worthy, not once in his life.
Why did Gordon think him worthy, it didn't make sense.
Of course, there were many things Henry loved about Gordon, one being the way that Gordon respected him. Gordon still, after all of this time, treated him like an equal. Like he was a big engine and worthy of the prestige that came with it and not like he was some mistake.
How was Henry sick of feeling like a mistake.
But with them being together now… Things had changed.
And then James came to him, asking for advice of all things. How was Henry an expert, he had accidentlied himself into this relationship, and didn't he know how messed up and wrong it was to want like this.
They were engines. They should not want.
Why couldn't anyone else understand how wrong it was to want?
"How did you know." James had asked him, for once in his life without intention to mock. How did you know?
How did he know?
Things had just happened, and Henry had gone along with them because they were easy. Loving Gordon was easy. Going along with it was easy.
"It seemed like the right thing to do." Was his answer after a long pause.
James frowned at him, clearly not expecting that answer. "Henry are you-"
"I'm fine." Henry snapped out, "Why wouldn't I be?"
This whole being moved thing, Henry still didn't like it. He still felt very isolated from everyone else, like he was one step from being tossed off the island. How long had it been since he'd seen Edward Thomas or Percy? Edward stuck on his own side of the island, and Henry not remaining on the island long enough to run into the other two.
He just had Gordon, and Rosie, he supposed, but he had never been close to the small engine, and she did not know him in the way that the others did.
Henry had always thought that he mattered precious little. Maybe he had just chosen this path to keep Gordon happy.
Over and over his mind drifted to the other back five, and he wondered if the Gresey madness was real. Why did Gordon think that they deserved to love like this? Why did he think? Why did they think? Why did they need to think?
What gave them the purpose? What gave them the right?
What cruel - What happened to make them alive? They didn't need to be alive? There was no point. They were powerless without the humans, lived at their mercy, died at their will.
Sometimes Henry did wonder if they'd put a tank engines personality into his frame. He did not suit his frame, it was loud, and hulking, making a presence with the railways, as much as most days all he wanted to so was blend in.
He was not the pride of the line. That was Gordon's role, and it forever would be.
You dont have to doupt yourself. There will be dozens of thousend version of yourself like there will be of everyone else. You change by night you change by hour you change by second. It is okay for you to just be.
