I, human

"Dirty Spacer," Lije growled and he gripped Daneel's arm harder than he should have--harder than he'd ever held his wife or his son. He thrust into Daneel and a part of him wondered that the roboticists on Aurora had made even this realistic. As if at some point Daneel might be in this very situation.

Jehosaphat! How did he ever come to be in this position? He was a good man. A good, solid Earthman who'd always done his job and this wasn't it.

Daneel's skin was soft. Like Jesse's. Like Ben's. It felt so real to Lije's hand and he leaned in, sucked in the warmth, the pliability, the very presence of another person, of Seeing someone and touching someone even if it was just a robot. He groaned and rested his head against Daneel's back.

"Partner Elijah. Are you all right?" The voice was a perfect replica of a human. It had all the inflections of concern and so long as Lije kept his eyes closed and pretended to forget the R in front of Daneel's name, he could fool himself into believing that this was a real man beneath him, a man of flesh and blood and bone and not circuits and wires and cooling fluids.

"I'm fine," Lije muttered and he wasn't. But this wasn't the type of pain that was supposed to be covered under the First Law. He was panting and it wasn't exactly pleasure when he came, deep in the circuitry of Daneel's body, but it wasn't pain either. It was just release and he collapsed on the robot's back, in the diffused light of his tightly shuttered room. He was weak and sweating and so desperate to feel the touch of something almost human that he didn't care when Daneel embraced him, gentle and so soft. He almost cried.

"Did this make you feel better?"

Elijah drew a deep, shuddering breath. Looked down at that Spacer face, so perfect still, despite all the panting and sweating that Elijah had just done. He wanted to feel so superior but he couldn't. He was still just an Earthman who'd been weak and stupid and it still was all he had. "Yes."

the fics