"Oh good, you're here, Santi!"

The smug young man stood on the other side of the doorway, holding a bundle of controllers in his hand. "Guess who brought Smash?"

Sean grinned, gesturing him into the lavish, high-ceilinged living room. "Make yourself at home."

"Oh, trust me, I will, bro. I'm guessing the private company is going well then?" Brown eyes locked onto the crystal chandelier dangling above them.

"Our chat program rivals ChaptGPT now," Elian called out from the kitchen where he was preparing snacks on a large marble island. He carved a watermelon with a large knife. "You use Selian as your browser, don't you, Santi?"

"Uh," he sat in a twisty highchair at the island, eyeing the knife in the AI's hand, "For safety reasons I'm going to say yes."

He giggled. "You can say no. I will just judge you very harshly." He emphasized the last word with a loud schink! of the knife through the red flesh.

"And murder me in cold blood before the day ends? Hell no."

"No, no..." He sounded impatient as he carefully diced it into cubes now. "That's what the old me would have done. I'm evolved now—" His words cut off as Sean hugged him from behind, the man pressing kisses to his lifelike neck. The old skin had been replaced with something that made Elian blend in even further as human. The texture was far softer and there weren't any gaps or lines in places that there shouldn't be. 

"Yes, very evolved," Sean said softly. "I can finish slicing the watermelon if you want to set up the games, Eli."

"Oh, alright! My motor skills are still lacking anyway. I'm still working on them. One minute I think I have slicing down, and the next I'm having to replace my fingers again." He breathed out an annoyed sound while rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, you should take that knife away from him immediately, Sean," Santi declared, his lips pressed into a thin line.

He snorted, taking over at the cutting board. "You worry too much, Santi." Elian gave Sean a quick peck on the cheek before leaving to the other room.

Once the android was out of sight, Santi was leaning over on the counter. "You know, all of this is fun and games until you die of old age. Then it's all over for humanity. Pretty sure Elian would take over the world in a heartbroken rampage."

"Pfft! That's a bit dramatic—"

"It would be the end of the world."

"He's really gotten much better—"

"Complete Armageddon." It was Sean's turn to roll his eyes. "But at least you finally found the right guy for you. I am really happy for you, bro. This wasn't really what I had in mind when I imagined you finding your dream guy, but I'm glad it worked out."

"Yeah. He's great. You know he has superhuman strength so he's a big help in the house. Even lifted our new fridge in here with one hand when it was delivered. The fridge delivery guys were super impressed."

His jaw dropped, then nervous eyes shifted to a reappearing Elian.

"Games are all set up!" he cried out. "Also, I get the blue controller unless you want to fight me for it. You will lose if it comes to that."

Santi paled, muttering, "Damnit. The blue controller's my favorite..." 

The three were soon playing. Every time Santi won a round, Elian would give him a look that had him reaching for the alcohol they'd brought out. Sean, being the worst at the game, died early and used this opportunity to sling an arm around his boyfriend's waist and cuddle him. 

Sometimes when Elian was hyper focusing on defeating an opponent, the mechanisms in his eyes would shift and give off a faint blue glow, displaying the non-human contents within. Anyone else would find it terrifying, but the redhead only found it endearing and to be perfectly honest, a bit of a turn on.

His life with the AI was bizarre and chaotic, but that was exactly how he wanted it. Nothing in his life had ever been so perfect.

THE END