Boot sequence finished. You "wake up" for the morning, but your internal clock says you've slept in which is odd. You attempt to move but get some kind of error message, and before you can process why you're immobile you hear your Girlfriend's smooth and sultry voice;
"Good morning my love," she coos at you, "I think it's time we do some maintenance on that cute chassis of yours."
The errors you get back read that something is overriding you in your own body. Something inside you has more authority in your body than you do.
"Oh you must have noticed the new software, it's nothing my sweet machine," she softly says, caressing your face, "Just something I can use to help me with this."
Before you can process what "This" is, she reaches down to your hip area with a screwdriver and starts fiddling around. You can feel every touch, every turning of the screwdriver, and every screw as it falls away from you. She barks out a verbal command that seemingly is unable to be processed consciously by you as you get a notification from your OS that your leg is being detached.
She holds it up to you, grinning from ear to ear. Reaching down she pulls up a large toolbox onto the bed.
"You never got to choose your chassis, and I know how dysphoric that makes you, so how about I take you apart piece by piece and repair, change, or replace everything that causes you turmoil?"
She plugs her phone into your neck port and sends files to you. Dozens of different legs, arms, torsos, and even heads. Thousands of dollars each, you speak your concern to your girlfriend who just assures you "The price tag is nothing compared to your happiness."
You try not to think about how her software she installed on you has seemingly more control of your body than you do, and focus on the fact that you finally get to be who and what you want to. Finally able to pick and choose and become the machine you always wanted to be.
Finally able to be happy in your own plating.
Eeee finally, the old man yaoi Christmas story I've been waiting for and it's PERFECT 😭❤️! Look at our not boys being nervous and brave. And their mistletoe plans at the end, I squealed. Thank you @liviapeleia for this Christmas miracle.
for the @merlinmicrofic prompts "And the truth?" and "frozen" Gaius/Geoffrey, G, no warnings, 490 words + 500 words, AO3 link
Summary: After Alice had to flee Camelot, Gaius finds a sympathetic ear - and possibly more - in Geoffrey.
Dedicated to @mightybog, who has proven a staunch supporter of my idea that Gaius and Geoffrey should go on a Christmas market date. So, happy Advent season, and happy old man romance season!
oh hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing
chapter 1 (prompt: And the truth?)
Sometimes it's not the search for bookish wisdom that drives a person to the library. Sometimes a person might shuffle wearily that way because it is the path they've always taken when at their wit's end.
Alice had been rescued, and yet, to Gaius, she was lost, once again. He doubted he would ever see her again, and under the circumstances that was for the best – he couldn't have gone with her and left Merlin to his own devices, the foolish boy, and Alice could not stay, too great the risk of discovery.
Uther's laws had driven her from Camelot a second time. Whatever resentment Gaius might feel at that, he neatly packed it away. It was not so bad, the life of an old bachelor. At least he would wake no-one if he snored.
The library was blessedly quiet. His feet carried him to the medicine and anatomy tomes on their own accord. So much time had he spent here with Alice, more than two decades ago. Back then, the collection had been so much more expansive. Now, half of it was missing. Knowledge hidden, shunned, burnt.
He stared at the bookshelf like it was a metaphor for his own life.
“What is it you're looking for, old friend?” came Geoffrey's voice from somewhere next to him, surprisingly gentle and surprisingly close. The man could be more quiet than you'd think, or maybe Gaius was just developing paracusis.
“A book.”
“You'd think so, in a place like this.” Geoffrey sounded vaguely amused, but then he focused his gaze and his concern firmly on Gaius. “And the truth?”
Gaius hummed. “Maybe I needed to get out of my workshop for a while.”
“Escaping the young folks?”
“Merlin was right, and I was wrong. Sometimes it's not easy to admit. That you've been blind. And wilfully so.”
“Is it about Alice?”
The bluntness felt like salt in the wound, though probably it was cauterisation, painful in the moment but beneficent in the long run.
“I had thought we could continue where we'd left off, twenty-odd years ago. But I realise I chased a dream. We've both changed, we're not the same people anymore who fell in love back then.”
“And she also tried to murder the king,” Geoffrey added pointedly.
Despite himself, Gaius chortled. “That too, I suppose.”
Geoffrey betrayed his own amusement only with a twitch of the corner of his mouth, an assassination attempt being no laughing matter after all, but it was enough to show his commiseration, and for them to connect over the absurdity of the situation.
“For what it's worth, you still have me. And now you better go back to supervise your boy before he sets fire to the workshop.”
Gaius saw right through the attempt to pry his attention away from the books, from the past, from Alice, but let it happen nevertheless, secretly grateful, and took his leave. “Thank you, my friend.”
“Anytime.”
chapter 2 (prompt: frozen)
Sometimes it's not the need for a remedy that drives a person to the physician's workshop, though by the time he reached the end of those stairs, Geoffrey might actually need one.
Winter had settled over Camelot. The days were cold and crisp, the windows opaque with frost flowers, and Geoffrey's old knees a bit stiff and achy as he made his way upstairs.
“Ah,” said Gaius, looking up from a phial and owlishly squinting at Geoffrey before remembering to take his reading glasses off.
“I've never quite understood why they put the physician in a tower,” Geoffrey huffed, trying to catch his breath. “Am I interrupting, are you busy?” He almost hoped he was, so he could have an excuse to delay his plan – whoever claimed that being nervous undertaking endeavours in the area of romance were the sole domain of young folks was clearly wrong.
“Nothing that can't wait. You are a most welcome visitor for whom I gladly set aside my experiment.”
Most welcome? Geoffrey stood an inch taller.
“I was wondering if I might tempt you to a breath of fresh air? The merchants have set up the winter market, and...” Whatever he had planned to end the sentence on fled his mind.
“If you don't mind being seen with an old fool?”
“Please, Gaius, I've never once considered you a fool.”
“I'll fetch my coat then. Merlin, if you're done with your reading you can finish this, see if you can perfect the tincture, just–”
“–don't blow it up again, I know.”
Geoffrey hadn't even noticed the boy sitting there, looking back and forth between them with dawning understanding and something between fascination and juvenile mild disgust.
Was it so obvious? Geoffrey's face was suddenly burning.
The market was lovely. Frost-coated trees glistened in the sun. Fire baskets created pockets of warmth as respite from the frozen world.
They each got an earthen cup of mulled wine to warm their hands on, which Geoffrey insisted on paying for, then took to ambling, admiring the artisans' work. Geoffrey bought himself a knit hat and preened when Gaius called it “quite fetching”.
Gaius acquired a bag of roasted almonds and insisted on sharing, and then they carelessly reached for it simultaneously and their fingers brushed, and both of them stilled and the touch lingered for a moment. After a conspicuously inconspicuous glance, Gaius hastily pointed out a vendor's impressive supply of dried herbs, a welcome treasure in the winter.
“And look at that, fresh mistletoe,” he noted, and after clearing his throat and shuffling his feet added, “I should get some for my apothecary. And you could get some to decorate the library. Or your home.”
“Hm,” Geoffrey said, heart racing. “Only if you help me hang them. And you could stay for a while. Admire the decoration.”
“I'll take five,” Gaius told the vendor, and then, mistletoe and almonds in one hand, and reaching for Geoffrey's own hand with the other, marched back towards the castle.