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"One, two, three, there!" Michael counted as he made one final motion unseen in the dashboard. A hand not currently attached to holding any of the delicate equipment in place made light fanfare of loosening tense muscles. An electronic whine accompanied whatever motions he had achieved as the dash about the concept car gleamed with newfound life. The last remnants of its prior host gave a muted disapproval, one soon to be forgotten at its erasure was complete. The dash dimmed at its past life. It then brightened with the glow of rebirth at its fiery new host taking up its stead. Gone was that pesky AI, here was the long sought treasure Michael truly wanted.
"KITT?" Michael began cautiously as the CPU transfer was completed, the man hopeful despite his fears.
As if blinking awake the CPU lit up some bars, disappeared then began again with audible relay.
"I see we both escaped Poseidon's kingdom." It came out softly, a trepidation in its newness. As if this were an artificial simulation and not a reality vacant of hypothetical electric sheep.
Michael took in a more somber mein.
Then the anxiety evolved into annoyance.
"I had been resolute on another decades long rest. Like a dragon deep in his cave...it may as well have been a cave. And my corpse would have made a fine piece of treasure I suppose." This was not how Michael envisioned their reunion, for a second time at least. There was an air of agitation brewing inside the AI. It tugged at Michael equally as each balanced on the same offense the other held. They were both on a familiar, precarious precipice.
Denial was a friendly bridge when two balanced on the same naked fears of rejection. Michael swallowed thickly as he yet again graciously backed down.
"Sorry it took a bit this time." He muttered as he slipped out the cabin to return to his work. Michael ignored his burning annoyance with nary an eye roll to give him away.
"I'm more surprised you didn't run away, again." KITT said, going for a casual, drawling sort of audio relay. One remiss of any regret. Or social grace for that matter.
"Again? Seriously?" Michael hissed, blue eyes burning briefly despite some liquid accumulating in their embers.
KITT watched the human move, a miffed cat with its tail flicking side to side with the motions of his sensor. Michael said nothing further as he grabbed a ratchet for some work on the undercarriage left to go.
He had hoped some vocalization between them would help the less tedious tasks left to go. Boy was he wrong.
"I am sorry about your Bel-Air, however," Michael heard above him, though he doubted the authenticity of his regret.
"Yeah, it's okay," he returned with equal measures of insincerity.
I thought I lost you clung to them like sharp thorns. Poking, festering, agitating them at a truth neither was ready to admit. Blaming the other for not taking that final plummet.
"I suppose you do have a thing for Chevies, don't you?"
Michael blinked up at the chassis above him. He wanted to do this now? Michael denied the bait, continuing his work as he fingered at some bits unseeing for the part he needed.
"Chevy truck, now a full-sized car, maybe you have a type." Michael bit his lips, bumping a finger roughly into a metal bit he did not intend to touch.
An oppressive air filtered between them then, KITT oddly ungrateful at his salvaging. Michael felt he knew why, but dared not cross that Rubicon when they had work to do. Shawn and Maddock could only be tricked so many times, especially Shawn if she saw his shoddy hacking skills.
With time at stake, the human braved exploring the undercarriage once more with singular focus. He just needed to find what he was looking for. His bias working with a certain Pontiac had clouded his other mechanical know-how's as he had to reacquaint himself with other car forms. Nevermind this was a conceptual car fresh to the market.
"Albeit, I suppose no drive thrus now means no more cruising in those Chevies." Then it devolved into a slighted tirade on older Chevrolet models, however veiled KITT felt he was making it to hide his true anger. It was too much for Michael, a Michael sat beneath a far too vocal car straddling above him. He pulled out with a dark scowl, escaping the underbelly with a new fire in his eyes.
"Now! You wanna do this now," Michael's bark reverberated throughout the garage, rage loose at last. Then, realizing that secrecy was the name of the game, the man began again far more quietly, "Bud, I came back for you."
Michael's hands ceased their toiling to slip at parts beneath the new chassis that would become KITT's new body. "I watched you die, again."
KITT dimmed in silence. His newly attuned sensors could pick up the faint warble of despair that his partner was trying so hard to clamp down on. To not let go. The same sorrows that had chased the man from the AI's side all that time ago. It perched on the man's shoulders in a heavy sag, moisture collected in lost eyes. Some dark thing had claimed his human, unshaken in its brutal grip on the human soul, well known but unnamed. Taboo between man and AI then. To acknowledge the newly built sin was unthinkable and yet always chasing both their thoughts. It demanded a resolution now.
KITT did not bow at this dark altar. Instead he made attempts to forge a new bridge between the two.
"I never regret dying for you."
A single drop fell to the ground as Michael blinked up at this newer form that would be the former Trans Am's. A parched noise choked out from Michael, but could make no further articulations as the man blinked to leave his stupor.
"Each and every time. I never regretted it. And I didn't regret it then."
A tightness surrounded the two. Noose-tight but still loose enough for either to pull back. Neither would. This was it, here and now. No more dancing around it, no more fleeing or decades to recoil from.
"KITT, I--"
"Besides," a vain attempt at nonchalance came from the new voice box. There was just a trace of a discernable hitch in that voice, that all too human, so alive voice. "You always brought me back."
Memories graced through either pair's minds, like hands locking together for the first time in a long time. Michael set aside the ratchet in his hands to raise himself up, grime and oil coating his clothes.
"Bonnie did all that really," Michael bowed his head as if to hide the trails of pain.
"Because I wanted to come back to you."
The wire tightened like chains now. Neither could break free. Neither wanted to as long as they were entangled with one another. Two souls reborn through tribulations as they kept returning to the other.
Michael reached out shyly then, hesitant to touch this new form. His hand hovered just above the hood in askance. In silence of what he was not able to bravely ask.
"Michael Knight, I could never say no to you."
Just then Michael made a guttural noise, sagging his weight atop the cherry red form. "God, you do so much to me. You hurt me, you left me, again!"
"You left me too. But I came back. You came back."
A giddy, wild look entered Michael's reddened eyes. "Shame Bon isn't here to christen your new body. Praise you and promise that the maniac behind the wheel won't hurt you."
"You have never hurt me Michael, only ever wounded me by not taking me with you."
So close. So tight. Michael was finding himself taking in labored, shaky inhales.
"You have the honor of christening my body. I think it suits me. Go on, touch me."
Michael wanted to shriek, wild and savage. He held back.
Idle hands now traced at the smooth slope of this new frame. A new hesitance was born that kept them from their true desire.
"Can you...?"
"Already have the cameras on loop." The concept Banshee preened at its return to full glory. "I never liked to share." The voice added as the car's soft nose beamed all the more smugly.
"I love you, bud." Michael slipped, flopping onto the hood more as his fingers took on their new feverous task. KITT's new springs gave small complaints at the jostling, but the AI was too busy fixated on the words he so ached for since his conception.
"I would do anything for you, Michael Knight," KITT returned, a sense of severity in that sincerity. A primal state built itself in one of the new backlogs KITT added. He was already wiping out what he felt was dated code, eliminating the less humane strings. Among them he added the most pivotal of all his structures with those words alone.
He was almost at 100% restoration. Even his mainframe gleefully chirped this. He just needed this last bit, to interface this sacred ritual.
"Take me, please," the CPU whispered rather hoarsely. It broke through the weak attempt Michael wanted to take to return to normalcy, back to hiding. He knew! He was not going to let the game end so soon. "Show yourself to me, only me." A slight growl emitted from the engine, possessive and fierce.
The human was taken aback, but only briefly as he gave a knowing smile in place of his stupefied frown. "I look like crap," Michael teased as he complied, button by button revealing more flesh beneath.
"You never look like crap--"
"You said I did!" Michael hissed with mirth, remembering to keep quiet.
"I was mad." KITT amended, new oculus fixating on the patch of fur the human body considered chest hair. An approving hum thrummed in the engine. "Michael, you never look bad to me."
"Easy tiger, no need to flirt."
"Flirt, me?" The cabin glowed again with the fluttering of a sweet chuckle. "I have no need for such a tactic, you're already mine."
Michael's breath hitched, hands stilling as he ceased their motions at that one truth.
"Now your belt," KITT teased, his appreciative gaze warming up his human's flesh in a delightful flush. "More." KITT demanded like some great king upon his throne.
You are so spoiled, Michael wanted to tease now he had recovered. Still, Michael loved to spoil this AI, the belt followed its wayward descent to parts unknown about the garage. Michael's old Chevy, battered and lifeless, could not judge, so Michael threw off his boxers as well, revealing his true self at last to his singular audience.
"My, my Mr Knight, we are a sight aren't we," came that distinctive purr that got Michael going. He vainly considered hiding his reaction, hands clasping in front of himself before recognizing the futility of this effort. So he traded for crossing his arms about his chest, permitting KITT to see the effects he garnered.
A proprietary flicker entered the oscillating sensor, turning a deeper maroon as KITT admired his partner. All this was his now. He suddenly resented the physical limitations of his new body, as limited as they were given its capabilities. He envied the human form, as he wanted nothing more than to run some form of digits about that shortened fluff his partner called hair. To run down that patch of chest hair all the way to where it ended just so. Just to skim over that beautiful form as his human could do to his own cold frame.
"Now give yourself to me, only me," KITT almost hissed with the naked want in his voice. He had become so damn human. He now wanted, lustful and yearning of his other half, to complete him. Michael was much the same. So the man obeyed.
The pair danced in a unique ritual then. A connection between man and AI none could witness as Michael gave himself over to his beloved friend. KITT took on a tender reverence then. Each crying out hymnals of worship at the other, each other's body an altar to kneel at. They both bore their naked selves to the other, each reaching out in shy touches that grew more confident as they each whimpered at the other in encouragement. Michael could feel the caressing of a presence on his form at various junctures of their sacred bonding. He returned them in kind as he reached into any intimate spacing he knew the AI would keen at.
KITT made the most lovely noises, each one reaching to Michael's groin as he worked the AI with the finesse of a skilled lover, of which the human most definitely was. His pride was not blinding him, he had every right to be boastful as his fingers slipped between the steering wheel, a wheel he briefly regretted lacked its aviator styling. He was quick to forgive this as KITT vainly tried to stutter out his lover's name in various intervals of moaning.
"Mi-ii-ccc-chal," the AI panted, rasped. His mock-Banshee form quivered. The lights flickered across that crimson coating in an elegant dance as the body made minute bucks as it tried to remain rooted in place. A Herculean task when those hands dipped just so into that sweet spot.
KITT reached out more of himself to touch at Michael. He cupped and fondled at his human, returning that pleasure relay loop between them. They were so close, so close to an end. KITT vibrated his form against Michael's whole body, making Michael a quivering mess. Still he shook as white hot pleasure overtook him, like a phoenix's blessings encompassing the human's form. He shrieked out KITT's name, tipping over the forbidden edge at last, the final taboo complete. Their baptism was finalized.
"Oh KITT," Michael could only whimper for a bit. KITT whimpered back with further no eloquence left in him for proper sentences. He was left with only soft, vulnerable noises that none had ever heard before, save one. Each basked in the afterglow between them, KITT panting on trembling tires, Michael draping himself lazily in his rightful place in the driver side seat.
Silence held between the two as they fought to catch their breaths, KITT having to fix his scrambling data. This body was virginal with incomplete codes until now. Each soon settled, Michael still caressing at any part he had in his languid slouch, soothing his beloved through his cool down.
"It's not a Firebird," Michael began with traces of labored pants, sweat dripping off him as he slumped into the driver side seat some more. His hands pat at the dash with trembling digits. KITT practically purred as he zoomed into the intimate spaces of his sated human. "But damn! I feel reborn again, how about you?"
A pause settled, calm with the satiation.
"I always feel alive when I am with you, Michael."
A heavier silence ensued. "I missed you," Michael said solemnly, his touches becoming more as he imparted all his genuine feelings into them.
"As did I." The cabin felt as if it was shrinking around Michael, but he did not panic. It felt less claustrophobic, being far more like a gentle embrace than some entrapment.
"I was never mad," KITT corrected some unspoken lie between them. "I was afraid."
"So was I bud, so was I." Michael rested his lips on the steering wheel.
There were only a few more adjustments to make to complete KITT's capability to roll out into his new role. Michael had been sneaking on and off the property since reviving his dearest. Tonight, however, he stayed a little longer, hands mindlessly petting at any and everything it could touch. He was reluctant to leave this comfort they had built together. He would rise from their nest soon enough, but for now he drank in every second of tranquility KITT afforded him.
Later Maddock and Shawn would come down after Michael had redressed and tidied some of his unkempt appearance. Michael found himself secretly giddy at Maddock's wailing protests at his own model being tampered with for the superior, original AI. Michael would later laugh that KITT's vanity transcended any form he took as the man was told the Chevy Bel-Air in the video loop was pristine. Michael laughed for a long time throughout that drive, KITT preening while Shawn could only frown with a fraction of approval.