4. Wallace
Wallace
Wallace came awake slowly, his confusion about his surroundings turning to joy when he realized where he was. He’d fallen asleep in Volt’s bed last night!
Well, not quite Volt’s bed, since his boyfriend didn’t have a bed, but close enough.
Wallace had thought their date yesterday was the best day of his life, but he was starting to hope that today could be even better. Today and tomorrow and every day after that.
He rolled over, eager to greet his lover, only to cover his mouth with a shriek.
Volt was standing across the room, eyes open and arms by his side, completely lifeless like those warehoused bots in the basement from last night.
“Creampuff?” Volt lurched into action, took two steps, turned with a look of irritation to unplug the cord connecting him to the wall, and was across the room in seconds. “What happened, sweetheart?”
Wallace was enveloped in Volt’s arms, even as Volt was craning his head, looking for danger. There was a whir and a soft thunk as his charging cord disappeared back into the hidden panel in his shoulder.
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Wallace told him. “It’s nothing. Really. I was just… Sorry. I wasn’t really awake.”
“Surely it wasn’t nothing, though. Did you think you saw something?” Volt’s fingers dug into his skin. Wallace registered that it hurt, but it only made him feel safer.
“No, I just—” He gave an awkward little laugh. “You weren’t moving, and it kind of freaked me out.”
“Ah, sorry about that. I was reading a book.”
Reading a book. Holy shit. Of course he was reading a book—however that worked for sparks. It must have been an ebook, so that even his eyes didn’t need to move.
Wallace tried to slow his frantic heartbeat. “Was it a good book?”
“I just started it, so I’m not sure yet. Before that, I was putting in some orders for the bar and pricing HVAC systems.” His brow furrowed, before a sunny smile returned to his face. “But it was nice to take some time to read while I could watch you sleep.”
“Oh, ah, I’m glad you got the time to do that. I’ll… I promise not to freak out next time.”
Volt ran his fingers through Wallace’s hair, brushing it back from his face.
“Is there anything you want to talk about, about me being a spark? You work at Orbit so I assumed you’d be around androids all day, but I noticed that you’ve seemed a bit uncomfortable around the other bots.
” Volt bit his lip, an unusually nervous gesture for the confident spark.
“If you’d rather I don’t charge when you’re around, I can do that. ”
Wallace shook his head. “No. Definitely not. You watched me eat, so I can watch you charge. I just need to get used to it. It wasn’t really about you, anyway.”
Volt made an interrogative noise, and Wallace buried his head against that strong chest. Did he really want to bring this up? It was a memory he’d rather not go back to. But he felt like Volt needed to know.
He didn’t want to make Volt think he was anti-spark, because he truly wasn’t. At least now he wasn’t.
But on the other hand, they’d only been dating for a day. He was going to sound pathetic.
Volt stroked his hair again. “You can tell me anything, sweetheart. But no pressure. Whenever you’re ready.”
How did Volt always know what to say? Wallace hadn’t been sure if he wanted to talk about this—now or ever—but just knowing that he didn’t have to made it easier.
He opened his mouth and closed it again. Ugh. He really didn’t want to tell this story. He didn’t even want to remember it.
He sucked in a deep breath. Better to get this out.
“So, uh, when I was a kid. Uh, my mom lived with me until I was almost six. She was already my dad’s second wife.
The first one was Rick’s mom. Uh, he’s my brother.
Half brother. But, uh, I guess that’s not really the important part.
But there was this nannybot, you know the ones?
They’re programmed to take care of the babies, help them with homework when they get older.
Not quite the same programming as teacherbots, but uh, at any rate, Nanny took care of me. ”
Wallace was totally butchering this story, but Volt nodded anyway.
“So, I kind of knew she was a bot because of the things my dad would say, but I didn’t really understand it.
He said horrible things about people too.
And I guess I loved her. The nannybot. Stupid, but I was a kid, right?
She wasn’t a spark, but she knew what kind of sandwiches I liked, right?
She could tell my favorite bedtime stories, and sometimes ones we made up together.
She taught me how to read when I was struggling in school, and she would take me for walks along the creek at the edge of my dad’s property.
Sometimes, I’d sneak into the kitchen, late at night when I couldn’t sleep, and she’d make me warm milk and fairy toast before sending me back to bed.
” He was sharing all these details, but really what he remembered was warm arms around him.
Soft, loving words. Protection from his older brother, who was deemed too old to need a nanny and didn’t want to be around her anyway.
“It sounds like you had a special connection. Though I am curious about fairy toast. It’s… toast with sprinkles?” Clearly, he had just looked it up.
“Yeah, just boring white bread with rainbow sprinkles and margarine to make it stick. I think it’s a thing in Australia?
But when I was a kid, I thought it was magical.
I also thought it was magical that Nanny would just know when I was up late and find me in the kitchen.
It wasn’t until later that I realized there was a charging room for all the bots off the same hallway.
We read about fairy toast in a book, where the kid stayed up late and did this with his human nanny, and I managed to convince my nannybot that it wasn’t a dessert somehow.
” He sighed. Those had been happy memories. Some of the last ones in his childhood.
“When my mom left, the new wife wasn’t very nice.
Not that my mom was very nice but… she wasn’t bad?
” He remembered tacky lipstick. Artificial smiles.
The slow blink when she suddenly remembered that she had a child.
But there had been gifts, too. Candy, just for him.
A stuffed bear that he’d kept all these years, even though he knew that his mother had gone on to have another family with different kids. They would be adults now, too.
“The new wife, though, she had it in for me.” Sharp, painted nails.
A spandex-clad form standing over him while he huddled in the corner.
“She didn’t want kids at all, but she got on alright with Rick.
He was eleven, and already doing well in school.
Soccer champ, Little League star, junior programmer awards.
All that stuff. And I was the weepy fat kid who missed his mommy and wanted to hang out with the nannybot.
So one day, on, uh, my seventh birthday, in fact, she, uh, reset the nannybot. To factory conditions.”
He felt as much as heard Volt’s gasp.
“Yeah. The nannybot, uh, wouldn’t turn on for two hours.
She just stood there, completely lifeless.
Like she was, uh, dead. And then when she came back online, she asked what language to use.
So I was, like, sitting there in this room with all my birthday presents, crying, and she just kept asking questions in all these different languages.
I wasn’t sure how long it was before I realized that maybe if I answered the questions she would come back, so I tried to answer them all as best I could. ”
Wallace drew in a shaky breath. “So, uh, I got her set up again, but she wasn’t the same.
She was, um, nice. But she didn’t remember the stories we’d made up.
Or where the creek was. She, uh, wouldn’t give me fairy bread anymore, even when I showed her where it was in the book.
A few months later, the new wife got rid of her completely.
And then, uh, dad got rid of that wife and we were on to the next one so, uh, that happened. ”
“Baby, that’s horrible.” Volt turned them in the bed, until they could lay down together with Wallace completely enveloped in Volt’s arms. “Do you think it was an accident?”
Wallace shook his head. “It was absolutely on purpose. She told me I was too old for a nannybot, and that I needed to grow up. I think my dad was probably fucking the nannybot, but then, he was probably doing that with some of the cleaning bots and stuff, too. Our house was pretty much a showroom for Orbit androids with big boobs.” He gave a shiver.
“I only have a cleaningbot and chefbot in my apartment, and neither of them look like people. They only operate for a couple hours a week and then they go back in the closet. It kind of creeps me out too much.”
Volt snuggled him closer. “I’m so, so sorry, darling boy. That’s horrifying. She never should have done that to you.”
“Really?” Wallace asked, face still buried in Volt’s magnificent chest. “I was seven. I was too old for a nurse.”
Volt sighed. “Baby, she took away what sounds like your primary parent. It doesn’t matter that it was a robot programmed to recall your personal preferences and execute sets of age-appropriate activities.
For you, that was someone you loved and trusted.
A beloved family member who made you feel safe. ”
“Yeah?” Wallace asked. He’d tried so hard to act like a big kid back then. He’d cried at night and gone back to wetting the bed. Rick had teased him mercilessly, no matter how hard he tried to put on a tough face. But it was just a nannybot, right?
“Of course, sweetheart. I’m not an expert on kids, but that’s like… I don’t know. When parents get divorced, they usually put the kids in therapy to help them adjust, right?”
Wallace scoffed. “Fat chance of that. My dad had three more wives before I finished college.”
“It sounds like you weren’t close to any of them, but the nannybot was a huge loss in your life. You should have been supported and comforted when you lost her, and instead it was done to intentionally harm you. That sounds like abuse.”
Wallace sighed. “That wife wasn’t any worse than my dad, really.”
“Then he was probably ab—”
“Please don’t say it,” Wallace interrupted. Maybe it was true. Maybe it wasn’t. Changing the words to talk about his childhood wouldn’t make it any better or worse. And he still had to see his father at work every day.
And speaking of his father… “What time is it?”
“Eight twenty-seven.”
“What! Oh, shit. I’m going to be late. Shit, shit, shit. I have to go home. No. I don’t have time. Oh, god. And it’s the Monday meeting. I just…” He lurched from the bed, and then sank back down.
Suddenly it was all too much. He could see his whole day spiraling out.
If he left now, he would be late and wearing yesterday’s clothes, which were far too casual for the office.
If he went home, he would miss the weekly kick-off meeting, and then his father would call him in later and ask to review it with him, shaming and berating him for wasting his time while ignoring his reports.
His stomach twisted in knots just thinking about it. This was what he got for having just one nice, special thing for himself. “He’s going to be so angry,” he murmured under his breath, preparing himself for it.
“Who? Who’s going to be angry?” Volt demanded.
Wallace gave him a flat stare.
“I don’t want you seeing him,” Volt declared.
Wallace snorted. “My life doesn’t work that way. He’s my father and my boss.”
“Call in sick. Tell them you can’t come in.”
He couldn’t. There was no way. He didn’t take sick days. Wollencrofts didn’t believe in sick days.
And look what that had gotten him.
Misery. Stress. Anger. Trying to live up to his father’s impossible standards and never being enough.
Hell. Maybe he should just take a sick day.
His employees did it often enough, didn’t they?
Not just when they were sick, but for all sorts of reasons.
Sick kids. Doctors’ appointments. Hangovers.
Vacations in Tahiti, he was sure. Sick days were part of the benefits package, and when he didn’t use them, they went away.
So, he could just… take a sick day.
It was like a revelation.
“I can take a sick day,” he said out loud.
“Yes, my little hamster, you can. The hamster wheel will keep turning whether you’re running on it or not. And I, selfishly, would like to have you to myself for the rest of the day.”
He turned to Volt. “Are you sure? I can still take a sick day and not, uh, impose on your time.” Not that he wanted to leave. That was the last thing that he ever wanted.
But he also didn’t want to be too much. Too clingy.
Volt pulled Wallace against him. “Too much thinking, hamster. Daddy wants you all to himself.”
“Are you sure, Daddy?” It came out as a whine. But he needed to hear it again.
“I’m sure, creampuff. I want to spoil you today. I don’t want you out of my sight.”
Wallace could feel his cheeks pinking up.
“What would make the day special for you?”
Wallace shrugged. Honestly, it didn’t matter. He would happily sit there and watch Volt do office work all day, and it would still be a thousand times better than going into his own job. “Being with you, Daddy.”
Volt claimed his mouth, owning it with lips and tongue until Wallace went weak and floaty.
“Damn, creampuff. You drive me wild. But you still need to teach Daddy how to make his pretty princess happy. Starting with something to eat.” He cupped Wallace’s chin.
“You still owe me a week’s worth of meals. ”
Wallace giggled. Actually giggled.
It was crazy how quickly Volt could turn his whole day upside down. Even crazier that he actually believed that Volt wanted to watch him eat. That there was no judgment there, only adoration.
“So,” Volt continued. “What does my baby need? Cute little cafe? Breakfast in bed? Or we could grab something quick from the kitchen and I could show you my favorite park.”
Wallace wanted all of them. But most of all, he wanted to learn more about Volt. “Show me your favorite park.”
“You’ve got it, sweetheart. But first, Daddy gets to clean you all up in the shower and find something cute for you to wear.”
Wallace’s pulse raced. God did he want that. But not where anyone could see him. “Daddy,” he started.
Daddy put a finger over Wallace’s lips. “Shhh… sweet girl. Not anything cute like you’re thinking. But Daddy has some serious shopping to do, and then we’re going to dress up my pretty princess.”
Wallace nodded slowly, mesmerized by the idea. It was terrifying in the best possible way. “Okay, Daddy.” He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve all this, but he never wanted it to end.