Static Crush {M/M} ✔

Chapter #48

The hallway feels preternaturally dark. All the candles are conserved for work in the office or meals in the kitchen, leaving only the wan light of the latter to stretch the shadows of wilted plants into alien proportions. The doorbell rings again, loud and threatening in the still dark. Hale reaches for the handle, unlocks it digitally, and prepares a smile.

Melissa nearly drops the casserole.

"Oh, you're in! Finally, I've been trying all day."

Hale clears his throat, "Ah, sorry. Been a bit busy."

"Oh, but I never saw—" Melissa says, looking over her shoulder at the untouched snow of the driveway, as if any 'busyness' could never take place exclusively in the home. "Nevermind! I just wanted to bring over a welcome gift. I thought you could use a home-cooked meal. Or does your wife cook?"

"When I haven't pissed her off," Hale says, borrowing from scripts of a thousand heterosexual relationships on television. He accepts the casserole. "Thank you, that's very kind."

"Really dark in there." Instead of taking her cue to leave, Melissa stands on tiptoe to peer over Hale's shoulder into the dark hall.

"Yeah, still haven't got the damn power back on," Hale says. "Well, thanks for the —"

"Oh, but you won't be able to reheat it if you haven't got power."

"It's fine. We've got the generator."

"Silly of me to forget. You did say. That must be such a pain to recharge all the time though. Why don't you just come over and I'll reheat it for you?"

Hale opens his mouth to object, but Melissa is already pulling the casserole from his frozen fingers, already turning around to walk down the steps. "Bring your wife."

"She's," Hale says, thinking of Damo wearing a dress and holding polite dinner conversation, "not in." He almost winces, hoping Melissa won't know that no one's left the house today.

"Oh well. Just the two of us then!"

Hale looks at Melissa, standing there on the bottom step, brazenly awaiting him as if he has no choice. He doesn't really. Not if he doesn't want to appear ungracious. Criminally rude. Or worse, suspicious. Not if he doesn't want to risk her forcing her way in to join them for dinner. Not with the clamour in his head of notification after notification ordering him to go.

He is so very tired of fighting his programming. It's exhausting.

His nature, his creation was the product of science. Evolution applied through technology. No part of him had ever been coded with belief in unproven things like faith or fate, yet the compulsion to go with her feels inevitable.

"Just let me grab my jacket."

They can't come into the hall without revealing themselves to Melissa, but Hale thinks he can hear the quick intakes of breath from the kitchen. Then Damo's voice blares like a siren in his head.

>>Where the FUCK do you think you're going?

>>She won't leave until she gets what she wants.

>>What the hell does she even want?

>>Company.

>>You'll crack. You nearly did last time. This is capital B Bad idea, and you're like, oh well guess I'll cave to her manipulative crap? Again?!

>>You don't understand.

>>Just shut the door, Haley! She can choose between going home or dying of exposure.