Work Text:
"Alright, little dude, you're done with breakfast?" Dirk Strider asks you. You look up from your untouched plate and give a brief nod. You don't want to eat any of it, you don't need to eat any of it. It's unnecessary, really. You recalibrate your balance in your seat at the kitchen counter, though one might view it as fidgeting.
"Alright," Dirk Strider nods, jotting something down on a notepad he pulls from a pocket. Then he pulls up a timer, just as yesterday. He sets that down on the table, and grabs something from the fridge. You watch as he pours a liquid into a glass, the same glass as yesterday. You internally process that this liquid is different from yesterday's - milk - and can calculate further that he will likely give you a different liquid everyday.
This one has a honeyed amber hue, and you recognize it from the bottle of apple juice that he keeps stocked in his fridge. He pours it approximately 75% full and slides it over to you, "Here, have a go at this, would you?"
You nod at this command, and take the cup. He starts the timer as you lift the cup to your mouth. At that point, your processor stops focusing on him and starts to compute the new substance. It is cold, the first thing you process, and you push back the immediate attempts to calculate the temperature - as you did yesterday with the milk - to focus on the flavor.
Unlike the milk yesterday, and the water before that, the juice is contrastingly tart. Not overwhelmingly however, with natural sugars from the apples, it's also sweet. It's a good balance. Before you can process much more, you realize you already drank the whole thing.
You place the glass down. There's something prickling at the peripherals of your drivers. You ignore it, but if you were a human, you'd place a pin in it and say that it was edging on disappointment or something similar. However, you are not human, so you don't.
"I take it you liked the apple juice?" Dirk Strider asks, capping his pen. You shove away the streamlined thoughts and focus on him as he jots something down. He looks interested.
You stare expressionlessly back, "No more or less than the last beverages you've served. I cannot like things, I have no preferences."
"If you say so, little man." He shrugs nonchalantly as he takes your glass. There's the same prickling at your drivers again as he goes to the sink with it. He looks at you for a moment, a slight upwards tilt to his lip, a smirk of sorts, "I can pour you another cup if you want."
You realize you're about to give him an affirmative, but something catches on the last word, want, and you slowly shake your head, "You know I cannot want."
He sighs and places the cup in the sink, then turns back to you, looking at you for a moment, then looking at something on the table. You follow his line of sight to his plate, empty of breakfast, and his glass, still half-full of the same apple juice.
He grins at you again, like he's planning something, "Can you bring me those? I gotta wash up."
You grab the dish and cup as requested and slide off your chair to go to him. The cup of juice still feels chilled in your hand. You hand the plate to him, which he takes and puts inside the sink with the other dishes, then you offer him the cup. He takes that too, but instead of putting it in the sink, he places it on the counter. Then he bends down and picks you up, hefting you onto the counter next to the sink, before grabbing the sponge. You note that him doing household chores with you up here, by his side, feels sort of homely. Cozy. Then again, you don't know what those things feel like, you remind yourself.
On the counter, you're now the same height as him, and he looks at you with an affectionate, perhaps brotherly expression.
You have no good responses to the look he gives you, so you take the cup and try handing it to him again. He gently pushes it back into your hands, with the same look, "Nah, dude, that's a waste of apple juice if I just pour it down the drain like that. You can drink it for me, alright?"
He turns and continues washing up, leaving you sitting comfortably on the counter next to him, with the apple juice in your hands.
You suppose he's right in some regards. Pouring it down the drain would, in fact, be a waste. However, you drinking it would also be a waste, as it's not like you're not going to convert the juice into energy or use it as sustenance to fuel you. It's practically the same thing as pouring it down the drain, completely logically speaking.
You look at the sink, water running and Dirk Strider scrubbing at a stuck-on stain. He glances at you with an encouraging smile, then continues scrubbing. You look back at the glass, still half-full, and you compute that... just don't have it in you to pour it down the drain. You pick it up and take a tentative sip. It's not as cold as last time, but it's still the same taste, the perfect balance. You drink it quietly as Dirk nods at you with a knowing, happy look. He takes the glass when you're done, washes it out, and you two continue on with your day.
The next cycle through breakfast drinks, when you see him pouring you apple juice again, you school your expression so it remains neutral. Dirk Strider does nod at the timer though, when you're finished, and he notes aloud, factually and with a smile, that this one was the quickest yet.