When it came to golem research, Lawrence found himself surprisingly driven. He enjoyed the work and had become quite the nuisance in as far as asking infinite questions about every single facet of the process. The other hunters in the department tolerated it though and in many ways he fit in with the slightly odd characters who found themselves drawn to this particular sort of work. The grunt work of the day was setting up princess golems for the training courses, maintaining the deathsweeper and trial type golems and other menial repetitive tasks, and then he was free to work on his own personal research project.

His subject was handsome, sharp cheekbones and soft youthful skin and long almost ethereal blonde hair which cascaded down to his shoulders. There was something almost elven about his eyes, brilliant icy blue, for the moment staring straight ahead. He couldn’t think of anyone more handsome he’d ever met and it had taken weeks of careful artistry and consulting with Rodney to truly make him that way.

The golem was himself. Twenty years younger and in the prime of youth, with both hands and the perfect build which had long ago narrowed its way from lithe to bony and just looking at his creation brought him great pleasure.

It had been a no-brainer to choose himself as the subject, after all the people he was familiar with as golem subjects could be perceived as creepy and stalkerish. He was aware of that much, that as much as he longed to make an America golem (and a clone America too) that neither thing was feasible or reasonable until he had built up consistency and trust in the department. He had to convince them he wasn’t completely crazy and that meant keeping things sensible for a good amount of time before he tried anything off the wall.

He wasn’t complaining though, this handsome son-of-a-gun wasn’t an AI golem, instead it was one that he was going to use to test out difference in hand eye co-ordination between a human and a golem. It would be a means to finally play some piano in the meantime and to be able to look himself in the eye in the mirror in a way he hadn’t really been able to do in some time.

Having to look sane for the people around didn’t mean that he couldn’t run his hand through that lovely blonde hair, perfect without a streak of grey and admire the golem in front of him. This was art.

Reaching for one of the default controllers, used in lieu of a full pod connection for maintenance and rudimentary control of the golems, he stood him up, the motion jerky and robotic on the manual control. Carefully he steered the golem to the full length mirror at the other end of the room, standing next to it and examining the view carefully and critically. It had never been hard for Lawrence to see how he’d aged, it was something he was aware of every moment of every day, but it was a whole other level to have his former self next to him, making every wrinkle, every flaw and scar stand out stark and clear against his skin. He looked like a shadow of that self, all bones, angles and bitterness, as if the coldness in him had drawn something vital out of him bit by bit, consumed by the void he felt in his chest.
He loved it and he hated it, loved that he’d be able to don this skin he’d crafted but hated more than anything that he’d decayed so much already himself. It would only get worse from here, he knew, though he was told the weapon bond might help, might keep him from withering away to the sort of husk he could imagine in his future. It made his blood run cold to think of it. He’d keep working, he’d work like his life depended on it - in a way it did - and he’d find a way to make golems more durable, more of an option. It would save them in the future from harm, it would prevent death, it would allow them to fight without being there. Mostly though, perhaps one day it would let him actually create something he could live in, somewhere he could be immortal and young.

He’d never need to grow old, he’d never need to change. He could be exactly how he’d always wanted to be. And he could save the people he didn’t want to lose and bring back those who were already gone.

But right now all of that was just a pipe dream, he had to focus on the matter at hand which was simply clearly defining the limits of what could be done in order to measure them as they were expanded in any way possible.That meant taking this very very handsome, very appealing creature out for a spin and gathering data. It was almost a shame, he found himself thinking that he’d get hurt if he did anything to it, because /oh what a handsome man he was./