"Talk," Lifer says, after Megan's spent a week skulking and feeling awkward, so Megan pauses over her breakfast cereal.
"I met your professional hookup at the gig last week," she says, and Lifer sits as inscrutable as Lifer ever did, and after a few seconds, tilts her head a little to one side. Megan knows this is a calculated prod, but Lifer's gonna make her talk, so she may as well just — "You probably shouldn't have deep-sixed your entire sex life for me."
Lifer lets that sit there for a few seconds, then shrugs, mechanically precise.
"I gotta get to work," Megan says.
"Still having palpable human feelings," Lifer tells her, three days later. "Talk."
"I'm human, I'm allowed those," Megan says, so Lifer just looks at her till she folds. "I feel bad, okay?"
"Covered that. The rest," Lifer says.
Megan's watching mindless TV; Lifer is curled up at the other end of her couch, doing sudoku, which for Lifer means staring motionlessly at the page until something seems to pop into focus for her, then methodically and without a pause filling every single number in.
"I should find an apartment," Megan says. She was already looking, in theory. Wasn't sneakily thinking of this as home; in theory.
Lifer puts her pencil between the pages of her puzzle book, gently closes it, and says, "Very invested in my sex life."
"You said it was good," Megan says defensively. "You should have good things," and Lifer looks at her and looks at her and Megan refuses to have any more to say than that.
Megan finds herself with a full stamp card when she's buying coffee at the good food truck near the studio near closing time, so she grabs a second one for Josie as part of the protracted, wary exchange of peace offering whatever-the-fuck they're doing, passes Dinosaur Dave at the register with a nod, heads through to the back, and...hovers.
She can hear Lifer and Josie talking, and she should just head into the room with them and announce herself. She should.
"—too much gelware," Lifer's saying tiredly. "Medical record says I made a good recovery; family says I changed afterwards. All wrong. Died. Different person, really different. Not one of you people. Can wargame it, fake interact. Known Megan a long time, nice person, gives me a lot of slack to act robot, don't usually have to work this hard at what's going on." There's a long pause. "Being weird."
"I mean, you said she met Marguerite," Josie says. "Maybe she feels weird about you being a sex work client—"
"No," Lifer dismisses it instantly. "Asked Marguerite if Megan was weird."
What, Megan mouths over her coffee.
"Was Megan weird about sex work with you," Josie says, in an obvious reading-aloud-off-someone's-phone intonation. "Jesus, you're like that by phone, too?"
"Like that in my brain," Lifer says. "Pay attention."
"Blah, blah — asked if she's your girlfriend." Josie pauses, and Megan closes her eyes into it and breathes in and out. "Lifer...."
"Would have told you that," Lifer says in her best robot monotone, "not told you she's too much woman for you."
"That's not where I was going with that," Josie says in a tight, rueful sort of way, and Megan backs up a few quiet steps, then treads louder on her second pass at the corridor, knocks cheerily on the doorframe.
"Hey," she says, aiming for nonchalant. "Got a free coffee here, if someone wants it?"
"No coffee for robots," Lifer says; Josie takes it with a deliberate brush of fingers and a smile that's not quite all there.
"I know you know I was there," Megan says, back at h— back at Lifer's.
"Not sneaky," Lifer agrees.
"I know you can't— you know, in your own bed," Megan says. "It's not fair, Lifer, so I should just—"
"Covered that," Lifer says. "Talk."
So Megan takes a deep breath, and says: "I can't get it out of my head."
"What," Lifer says, and just sometimes Megan would shank a guy to know whether Lifer actually knows things and is prodding or really needs to ask.
"That I'm sleeping in your fuck bed."
Lifer's shoulders jolt. And then, after a second, again. Megan thinks for a terrible second that she's somehow broken her, and then she lets out a cracked and rusty noise that Megan takes another couple of seconds to definitely decode as a laugh.
"Fuck bed?" she says.
"Fuck you," Megan says crossly, and stamps up the stairs and closes the door sharply, and both is and isn't expecting it when Lifer quietly knocks, a minute or two later. She jerks the door open. "I'm trying to cry out of pure embarassment," she snarls, "and I fucking can't, because what am I gonna do, weep into the pillows on your fuck bed—"
"Won't make any difference if you go," Lifer says.
"What's that supposed to mean?" And she wasn't entirely exaggerating; swipes under her eyes with the back of her hand, and scowls.
"Can't fuck in my bed," Lifer says. "Won't be able to fuck in Megan's bed either."
"Oh, fuck you," Megan sniffles, and Lifer holds her hands out. "What? Is this evil robot hug therapy now? Take your medicine for your stupid human feels?"
"Yes," Lifer says, and waits her out, waits for Megan to rest her chin on Lifer's shoulder and hug out her extremely stupid-feeling feelings.
Later, while she's having trouble falling asleep in Lifer's fuck bed, Megan remembers that Lifer always ferrets whatever she wants out of Megan by asking and ruthlessly waiting.
The next follow-up question to I can't get it out of my head, after what, is why, and Lifer didn't ask.
