Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She should have seen the signs sooner in hindsight.

N hadn’t been his usual, cheerful self in weeks… and to say it was becoming concerning would have been the understatement of the century.

He tried, of course. N wasn’t the type to let his problems bring his loved ones down with him. But Uzi could see right through him; he smiled, but it never reached his eyes anymore, the wag in his tail felt more rigid, more forced, and whenever she touched him she could feel the tremors that plagued his whole body.

At first, she waited. It was hard, frustrating even; patience wasn’t something that came easy to her. But Uzi’s unwavering trust in him outweighed her desperate desire to crash through his walls and demand to know what was wrong. He was entitled to his own privacy; and she knew how much she detested when other people tried to force or pry information out of her… so whatever was going on, she wanted him to come to her when he was ready.

…Waiting didn’t last long.

He was more stubborn on the matter than she had expected, and seeing the suffering of the person she loved more than anything else in the world worsen with each passing day quickly eroded Uzi’s resolve. At the very least, maybe she could find some way of helping subtly… a suggestion at an activity she knew he adored. So, of course N’s eyes lit up, (she had missed the expression so desperately) when Uzi offered a rendezvous out into the wastelands beyond the bunker’s oppressive doors.

N loved being out in the city. Maybe it was because it was what he was used to - there was comfort in familiarity, after all. Or, maybe it was because he had someone to share it with now. Uzi recalled countless nights where N had dragged her through the streets with a delighted grin, presenting all his favourite haunts to her; old record stores with dusty, yet somehow useable vinyls, a half collapsed skyscraper with shattered glass that shimmered under the moon’s glow, a pillared column of asphalt with jagged edges like claws reaching desperately skyward… She was certain N could find the beauty in anything.

…He had somehow found it in her when no one else ever had.

The distraction seemed to work, at least for a while. N’s demeanour brightened, and this was certainly the chattiest he’d been in the past few days. Uzi pushed herself to make more of an effort to point things out, to find little treasures amongst the rubble for him, and it brought her deep relief to see his eyes soften whenever she brought something to him.

“What do you think this thing was? Some sort of quartz amplifier for a laser canon?” Uzi twiddled something small and spherical between her fingers and thumb, observing the item with deep curiosity. The humans had left behind a total mess when they had snuffed it, but the scattered debris came with a few perks for those curious Workers they had left behind.

As it turned out, scavenging was actually fun when you didn’t have to worry about getting pounced on and devoured by ravenous Disassemblers. Discovering relics of a society long gone always scratched at an itch in Uzi’s CPU, and to have someone to explore with now, someone who loved it all just as much as her… it meant more than she knew how to put into words.

From where they sat on a concrete slab suspended betwixt two crooked building walls, N shuffled a little closer to her until their arms brushed, and Uzi felt his fingers click and clack against her own. “Uzi, that’s a marble,” he stated, clearly amused. “It’s a toy.”

“Pretty boring looking toy,” Uzi muttered. She dropped it into his waiting palm when he offered his hand out to her, and she watched as he brought it close to his face and scanned the swirling pattern within.

“I think it’s kind of pretty,” he said softly, quirking his head as he considered the ornament. “I like the colours. See, look? It’s got a little stripe of purple in it. That automatically makes it cool.”

Uzi couldn’t deny the smile that twitched on her lips. “Oh… Well, I mean yeah, I guess,” She bumped her head against his shoulder to get a second look. “Okay fine, I guess it’s a little cool, if you’re into spherical glass pebbles. This has got nothing on the gemstones we find out in the western district sometimes, though.”

She noticed it, the wince of pain as she made contact, and the way he hid it behind a tired smile. Still he leaned down slowly, stiffly, to nuzzle against her fringe until his lips brushed against her visor.

“You’re still my favourite gem that I’ve ever found out here,” he purred softly. His arm curled around her loosely, hand resting on her hip as he scooped her effortlessly closer. “My precious, beautiful, little amethyst.”

Uzi snorted, her fangs curling over her bottom lips as she smiled. “Ugh, gross… You big cheese ball.” Despite her words, she tipped her head back and nuzzled against his cheek affectionately.

If there was one thing that put her mind at ease, it was the security in knowing that whatever was happening, he still loved her. Perhaps a few months ago she might have been more insecure, but she knew now that this wasn’t an; ‘oh no, what if he’s thinking about breaking up with me,’ type situation. Uzi trusted N more than anyone else in the world – he wouldn’t be acting like this, wouldn’t lie to her face to put off a painful conversation for a later date. If anything, he seemed like he had been seeking her out more frequently.

…Maybe her mere presence was enough to bring him comfort in this time. It was a strangely sobering thought.  

N hadn’t been sleeping great… it was another fact that she knew for certain. So it eased her worries slightly when she watched him doze off on the concrete, flat on his back beside her, with his arms folded over his chest. It was like instinct, the way Uzi’s fingers found their way moving to brush through his soft hair, mindful of the bulbs on his headband, their lights low and flickering in his sleep.

She fidgeted silently with the marble, letting it slip and dance between her fingers skilfully before letting it rest between her finger and thumb. The glass was clear, with two stripes in its slightly bubbled core; yellow and purple. It was a colour combination that just… worked. Uzi recalled a hazy memory of an art class as a child, by a teacher probably long dead now, on complementary colours, the colour wheel – all things that seemed a bit pointless to her at the time. Only now did it feel like some part of that lesson had clicked in her mind as she appreciated the proximity of the colours, tangled in a frozen dance within the glass, and she smiled.

Yellow had become her favourite colour recently. Funny how things worked out like that.

N grunted in his sleep, disturbing Uzi from her thoughts. His fingers twitched, and his nose bump wrinkled into a grimace as he rolled his shoulders against the ground beneath him. A low growl rumbled through his chest, tail flickering in a display almost as threatening at the opal fangs now poking out from between his lips in a near snarl.

For a moment, Uzi wondered if he was dreaming; chasing prey across the city or fighting Cyn by her side. But there was something in his movements, something too deliberate, it wasn’t the typical jitters of limbs sprinting in a dream. He growled again, and this time she could hear it, the low, rasping tones of fabric grinding against pavement.

His coat. N was rolling his back and shoulders slowly to and fro against the floor, over and over again. She’d seen him do this before – whenever he thought she wasn’t looking – usually against the concrete walls of the bunker, or the thinner edges of metal girder supports. It had seemed harmless enough at the time, like scratching an itch, but now it was starting to worry her; this close, she could see how harshly he was rubbing himself against the rough surface, using it more like a grater. Even with an advanced healing factor, the constant scratching couldn’t have been good for him.

Pocketing the marble, Uzi shifted so that she could instead curl her fingers around one of N’s huge, bear-like hands. His fingers shuddered, then enveloped hers. “Woah, hey… hey,” she whispered softly, stirring him lightly from his restless slumber. He groaned, blinking open a single, bleary eye at her. “You’re gonna like, scrape all the casing off your back if you’re not careful.”

“Mm…” N rubbed his visor and sat upright, leaving behind a multitude of oil speckles on the dusty grey pavement where he had been resting. “Sorry… didn’t realise…”

Uzi’s hand hovered close to his back, but she stopped herself short of touching him. It was probably fairly tender now, and the last thing she wanted was to hurt him any further if she could help it. Instead, she redirected to let the backs of her knuckles click against his forearm.

“You look tired,” she said quietly. There was no point in hiding her worry now.

“I am… a little,” he admitted. With a flick of his tail, N’s distant gaze cast skyward towards Copper 9’s twin moons.

All but for the slow sway of his canister, a gold lantern in the dark, N fell completely still – as still and quiet as the world around them, even the wind dimming in its constant whistling. Though Uzi was getting better at appreciating these moments of calm, it felt like a puppeteer was twitching and pulling on invisible marionette strings urging her to move.

…She had never been great at sitting still for too long. Some stray line of code in her programming probably. Something she inherited from her mother.

“Alright, c’mon,” she said as she stood, offering out her hands to help N up. “Lets get you to bed before you pass out on the pavement again.”

…At least in bed he was less likely to injure himself any further.

N put up no protest, reaching up to take her hands. Of course, N was heavier than Uzi could reasonably lift up by herself, and so she naturally would have toppled in a heap on top of him if not for N centring his balance to compensate, catching her in his arms on his way up.

“Oh! Gotcha!” There was a light chime in his voice, even if it was a bell dulled. Still, there was always a sense of comfort in being enveloped in N’s arms like this, and the pair hesitated to break away from each other.

Uzi tried hard not to focus on the slick, damp feeling of oil on her finger tips where they had clung to his jacket. “Bet I can beat you back to the bunker,” she forced a smile, offering him a fang-filled grin, as wings burst from her back and into the frosty air.

He’d win, she knew that. He always won. It took him far less energy to fly than her… after all, he was built for flying, while Workers… well, weren’t. She’d just pulled the weirdest straw in the lottery of life and ended up with fleshy wings that could keep her far less aerodynamic body airborne briefly… perhaps only a few, brief minutes at a time.

“Oh… wouldn’t you rather walk?” He laughed, but there was a distinct tension in his voice and demeanour, his tail betraying him with its nervous twitches and flicks. “It’s such a beautiful night, why don’t we make the most of it?”

Uzi faltered, her wings sagging as she stood a little straighter, and she let them retreat back within her casing. “Oh. Uh, sure.”

In a way, N had been right. It was a beautiful night, and admittedly it was nice to hold his hand as they strolled through the sombre streets back towards the bunker, the eternal winds twirling snowflakes around their feet. She always felt safe with him. Even with J still out there, even with the possibility of other dangers lurking in the night… when the two of them were together, they could take on anything.

She just wished he’d let her help him take on whatever… all this was.

N walked slower than usual. Uzi wasn’t sure why, whether it was pain, or him drawing out the moment, or… well. He did seem distracted. Head tilted back, N’s gaze was skyward again, staring up at the stars above. He looked so wistful, a deep longing painting his features, like an animal in a cage yearning for a freedom just out of reach.

She wondered how often N thought of Earth. Did he still consider that place his true home, even though it was long gone? Did he miss it? Unconsciously, Uzi squeezed his fingers as she thought, considering how she might be able to make Copper 9 feel more familiar to him. It was overwhelming to think on where to even begin - this planet was too broken, too damaged right now; merely the discarded husk of a dead civilisation…

Uzi felt the eyes on N’s headband flick down to stare at her and instantly she felt sheepish, and as though she had been caught red handed with thoughts N couldn’t have possibly determined.

“What are you looking at?”

N smiled. “Something pretty.” Uzi flushed purple as she pouted, trying to pull her beanie down and hide her face. He chuckled lightly, tugging her hand so that she would walk a little closer to him.

He made her feel so weird sometimes. Made her care so much. Here she was thinking about how she could singlehandedly terraform a planet for him… an impossible task, and yet one she would start in a heartbeat. Robo-God…. She’d always made fun of the schmaltzy, over-the-top romantics in TV shows, and yet she never thought she’d ever end up just as completely ridiculous over someone.

 In the past, caring about people had only gotten her hurt, over and over again. So she had learnt to shut her heart off, build walls to keep herself safe. But with N? As the Disassembler gazed at her so warmly, his tail curling affectionately around her hip loosely as they walked, Uzi couldn’t deny an indisputable fact.

Caring about N was as natural to her as breathing.

***

N always liked to walk Uzi home to her door, even though it took him off the path to his own quarters.

It was sweet, perhaps a level chivalry he had developed in his time serving the Elliots. He knew she didn’t need protecting – this bunker was probably one of the safest places on Copper 9, so Uzi suspected it was also partly a desire to stretch out their time together.

There was a hesitation at Uzi’s front door from them both, an unspoken question lingering in the air. What now? Admittedly, Uzi also wanted to indulge in his company a little longer, keep an eye on him for a bit to see if he could settle… and maybe a selfish part of her just yearned for him to stay close because everything in her life always felt better when he was around.

“Hey… do you like, wanna stay for a bit?” Uzi asked. She was getting braver about asking lately - it felt like it was getting easier to initiate things with him. “We could like, watch a movie, or you can have a nap while I work on some of my projects.”

The sway of N’s tail increased to a gentle wag as his eyes lit up again. “Yeah? Yeah! I-I’d like that.”

Uzi led him inside, her living space quiet and empty. Khan and Nori were out that night on WDF business; reviewing the colony’s supplies and surveying any security weak spots. N’s fingers curled a little more securely around Uzi’s hand as they sauntered through the hall. She always got the feeling he felt like he was intruding until they reached Uzi’s room - like her parents would round the corner and stare him down coldly for trespassing in their home.

Uzi squeezed his fingers back. ‘It’s fine. You’re fine. I’ve got you.’

He relaxed as the door closed behind them, and they were enveloped in the comforting hues of purple LED strips and the dark tones that made up Uzi’s room. Finally, their fingers parted, and Uzi turned to face him and wrapped her arms around his waist, hands smoothing up and down his back comfortingly.

She was going to ask if he was okay, but she received the answer before the words could even form on her tongue as N was wracked with another sizeable shudder. With a small hiss between his teeth, he squeezed her, the rounded tips of the claws on his fingers digging into her back.

Oh… it was there. There was something wrong with his upper back – something causing him a great deal of pain, and as empathy struck a sharp chord within her, the words tumbled out from her lips before Uzi had a chance to stop them.

“N, what’s going on with you?” She pulled back just enough to look up at him, and his eyes hollowed out anxiously. “You’re in pain, aren’t you? You have been for ages. What happened?”

“I-It’s… it’s nothing serious,” he tried to laugh but it sounded strained, and his eyes darted away from her. “It’s honestly stupid really… You don’t need to worry about-” N paused as Uzi’s fingers reached up to cradle his cheek.

“Hey. Talk to me,” she said a touch softer now. She smoothed her thumb slowly back and forth over his casing. “Whatever is happening, you know you can trust me, right?”

N froze as he stared at her; a deer caught in headlights. Digits rose, and he held Uzi’s hand to his cheek for a moment, leaning into the touch, and she could read the expression in his eyes so clearly.

‘Of course I trust you.’

But then he looked so ashamed, so deeply guilty, like a dog caught after breaking a prized pot. His hand fell back down to hover near his chest as he scratched anxiously at his jacket’s lapel. For a moment, Uzi thought he wouldn’t tell her. Then, quietly he spoke.

“I think I have something lodged in my wing port,” he admitted miserably. “It’s really, really uncomfortable, and it’s blocking my wings from being able to extend. I-I’m sorry. I should have said something earlier, it’s just…” He fidgeted with his fingers, curling and uncurling close to his chest and unable to meet her eye. Uzi let her hand rest gently over one of his.

“It’s just…?” Uzi asked, urging him to continue.

“J always got mad whenever this sort of thing happened,” he said in a small voice. “A-And I know you wouldn’t be, but I just- I guess I didn’t want to be an uh… an inconvenience.”

Uzi scowled at him. No… that wasn’t right. She wasn’t scowling at him, rather she was bristled with rage at J again. Even now, months later, she was watching the aftershocks of her mistreatment of him, and how it had shaped his self-confidence. To see him looking so broken, feeling like he couldn’t ask for help because he had been punished for it so often…

“N, you are never, ever an inconvenience to me, alright? I want you to get that into your head,” she reached up again and grabbed his cheeks, giving him a little shake. “Internalise it. Your problems are not a burden.”

N’s fingers brushed softly against her arms as they trailed up to rest over the backs of her hands, and she felt him grow heavy in her palms. His eyes were so weary, thin yellow fatigue lines marking their undersides, and she could have sworn she saw the tiniest prickle of tears in the corners of them. “Sorry,” was all he could manage.

Guilt rattled Uzi’s core deeply, and she caressed the rim where his visor met his casing. “Hey…” she said tenderly now, tugging him closer. “I’m not mad at you, you know that, right?”

N tried to smile, and he leaned down to bump his forehead to hers. “Yeah. I know.”

Uzi shifted to kiss him between the eyes, letting her lips linger against his warmth before she pulled back to regard him. Even now she could feel his squirming and twitching in pain. He needed help… even if he was still too nervous to ask for it outright.

“N, can I- …Would it be alright if I took a look?” She asked delicately, hyper aware that N was in a fragile way. “I want to help you. If you’ll let me.”

N looked like he had desperately yearned to hear those words his whole life, and yet couldn’t quite believe his luck that he was finally hearing them. Something far more hopeful flashed across his eyes, wiping away the previous lethargy. “Y-You want… I… y-yeah! Yeah. Please.”

Uzi lead N to her bed, hopping up and patting the sheets next to her in invitation. N did as motioned, and crawled close to her. He stared at her expectantly, tail swaying to and fro behind him. Uzi nodded at him.

“N, your jacket.”

“Huh?”

She rolled her eyes and gave the lapel a firm tug. “You gotta take it off so I can see.”  

“O-Oh! Right.”

N hesitated, trembling fingers fumbling at the buttons, and Uzi steadied them carefully with her own. She didn’t need to say the words aloud or even display them on her visor; Uzi offered him a silent question with her eyes.

‘Do you want me to?’

She watched his shoulders relax and he gave her a relieved nod. Uzi slowly and carefully unbuttoned the jacket, and slid her fingers under the fur around his shoulders, peeling it delicately over them so that the fabric now only draped around his elbows.

Uzi had only seen N topless a handful of times, and it was usually brief; in the moments where he changed into his pyjamas when he stayed the night. She knew he was self conscious about his chest and the scars there - gouges marked the casing around his chest panel, deeper in the middle then rising and fading as they moved outwards and away from the glass. These ones were old, she knew that, from a time before he could heal - the remnants of a body that was once Worker. They were distinct in their appearance too, tunnels that looked like they were made by fingers. Fingers in a clawing motion…

She tried not to stare. It always seemed to make him more anxious and panicky, like he was afraid he was being judged for them. She’d held back on even commenting on them before now, it felt like too sensitive a subject.

N stared at his lap, his eyes far off like he was in a trance. She couldn’t tell if he was reliving a memory or had emotionally shut down to protect himself, but either way he no longer looked present in the moment. Uzi reached forward so slowly, passing her hand in front of his gaze so he could see what she was doing. Her fingers lingered inches from his chest, giving him ample time to stop her if he wanted, and when he didn’t she tested the waters – first letting the very tips of her fingers brush the glass.

N shuddered, but he didn’t flinch away or lash out, (there had been a moment, however brief, where she had considered the frighteningly real possibility of N panicking and striking her with his claws in confusion) and some clarity seemed to return to his expression. She let more of her digits rest against the smooth surface until her palm nestled neatly over the glowing skull icon displayed there.

More than anything in the world, Uzi wanted N to know he could trust her - that she wouldn’t hurt him in the way Cyn had. She hooked a finger under his chin and guided it so that he was looking at her again, smiling at him reassuringly.

Being vulnerable was hard for her, even still. Wearing her core on her sleeve had never been in her arsenal of strengths, especially since it had done nothing but cause her terrible pain in the past. But N would never hurt her like that. And Robo-God knew he needed this right now.

“You’re beautiful,” she said lovingly, affection catching on her tongue and dripping from each syllable. She felt his heartbeat rise, thumping under her fingers as his breath hitched in his throat and he stared at her in surprise. Then, something sorrowful, something deeply regretful tugged at his features.

“I-I… I don’t always feel it,” he admitted under his breath. “Not after everything I’ve done.”

Uzi huffed and sat up straighter. There was no chance she was going to let him mope like that after her heartfelt statement. “Yeah, well, you are,” she said, more authoritative now. “Sorry, but you know I’m always right about everything,” Uzi reached up to ruffle the hair at the side of his head. “My sweet, beautiful, angel of death.”  

N laughed, spirits seemingly raised for a moment before he shook and gasped, doubling over as he was racked with another wave of pain. Uzi instinctively lurched forward to hook her arms under his and held him upright as he groaned weakly.

Oh Robo-God, right… she was getting distracted.

“Alright buddy, hold on…” Uzi shifted so that she was now kneeling behind N, and her heart sank at the sight before her.

It was an iridescent mess of slick, black oil, smeared and trickling down his back from the recent rake marks of claws… and they weren’t the only self inflicted wounds she could see. Under this light and at this angle… Uzi could spot the hundreds of faded scratches and scars lining his upper back. Years worth of desperation. Scuffs both old and new alike littered his casing, worn down by the brick and concrete walls he had clearly been using to try and alleviate his tender wing ports.

The casing wasn’t the only part of his back that had taken a beating either. She often forgot, as it was hidden away under his coat, that N had a short mane running down the length of his spine, starting just below the nape of his neck, right down the base of his tail, where it thickened out slightly, sprouting the thin, wire-like appendage.

It took her a moment to realise it was striped. It was so dull and stained, but upon closer inspection she could see now dim golds in the mix, evenly dispersed between bands of slick black. Clumps of fur were missing between his shoulder blades and the small of his back, patchy and thin, with tiny rivers of dried oil streaming down the hairline. He’d clearly been tearing it out; probably from the stress and discomfort.

‘Oh, N…’ Uzi thought miserably. She ran her fingers gently down his spine, watching the fur bristle under her touch. ‘How long did you have to suffer alone like this?’

“You look like someone tried to butcher you,” she said quietly. “I didn’t even know… you’ve been using your claws too?”

N shifted, clearly still feeling tender. “Y-Yeah… Sorry.”

“No you… you don’t have to be sorry, okay? I just…” Uzi sighed, placing a hand tentatively against the back of his shoulder, one of the few places not ravaged by fresh injuries. “Try and hold still, okay? And then after, we’ll get you all cleaned up.”

N gave a subdued nod.  

Both ports looked in such a sorry state that she didn’t even know which one was giving him trouble at first - not until he opened them both up. The left one clicked and grinded, the spiralling barriers jarring about two thirds of the way in, and she grabbed a mini flashlight from her bedside table to peer inside.

Uzi could just about make out the piece of grit causing him grief, but she didn’t want to just… jam her fingers in there - it felt like it would be a weirdly violating (and also terribly inefficient) way of going about things. So, she sent her tail under the bed to search for the pair of tweezers she often used during wiring and other intricate electronic work. N squirmed awkwardly, tensing when she slipped it between the metal and casing, and she rubbed his shoulder soothingly and apologetically as she made contact with the bit of gravel.

“Alright, just… try to relax, alright?” She mumbled, hesitating anxiously as the pincers closed around it. “And uh, try not to pop your wings open while I have my face right here. I know I might be a fast healer, but I still don’t want a concussion. Or to get skewered.”

“Y-Yeah. Got it.”

For something that had been the cause of so much pain and suffering, it came loose surprisingly easily. With a tiny click and twist, N was finally free… rid of the thing that had menaced and eluded him for weeks. Uzi gazed at it almost awed at how such a small and seemingly insignificant thing could have lead to so much suffering. Then, with a scowl, she flicked it away unceremoniously, watching it bounce off her wall and disappear behind her desk.

Good riddance.

Almost immediately after the grit had been dislodged, the metal shutters of his wing ports flicked fully open, N’s whole body shivering as it did. Then she heard the long, drawn sigh of relief as his shoulders eased, and his arms went limp. Uzi smiled, resting her cheek between his shoulders as she let her arms snake around his waist.

“Better?”

N’s casing vibrated with a light purr under her touch. “The pain is gone,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “It’s actually… wow… I almost forgot what that felt like.”

Uzi heard the click and woosh of N’s ports closing and opening again smoothly, but then he tensed again.

“…You good, N?”

“O-oh. I mean, uh-” he stopped himself, wavering. She knew him well enough to understand why; he didn’t want to seem ungrateful. She gave him a little reassuring squeeze. “They’re… still stuck.”

Uzi’s brow furrowed and she pulled back to look again. “What?”

She hadn’t seen it, blending into the darkness and previously obscured by the metal shutters. But as she hesitantly let her fingers grace the inner workings of his wings, she could feel it - soft between her finger pads. Fur. More fur? Why had Cyn designed them to have so much fur? It felt like such a bizarre choice. Unless… perhaps it wasn’t a design feature at all, but rather a mutation caused by the Solver virus itself. She knew first hand how seemingly sporadic the organic transmutations were. Nature - the biological kind - was chaotic, and worked in strange ways.

The problem became quickly apparent. The fur was supposed to pop out with his wings, but it had become matted over time, twisting together like nets, and preventing his wings from sprouting. Uzi worked at the knots with her fingers, and though some came loose, others were far too stubborn, and she clacked her tongue irritably.

“Hold on…” She hopped off the bed and scavenged a pair of scissors from her workbench - previously used by N for an arts and crafts project, and still sprinkled with gold glitter on its lavender handle. She whirled around just in time to catch N hunched over with his claws out, trying to hook one into the wing port.

“No!” She snapped. “No claws on the bed! And especially no claws near your back!”

N flinched at the sharpness in her tone, shrinking as she stormed over. “Ah! Sorry! Reflex!”

Uzi scoffed at him irritably as she climbed back up, and batted his claws about until they timidly retracted and his regular hands returned. “Robo-Christ N, I’m working on it... You gotta have a little patience. I promise you’ll feel a lot better in a minute.”

She shuffled back behind him, new tool in tow, and returned to the tangled mess clogging his ports. Carefully she hooked her fingers around the worst of the matts, and snipped it free, keeping a careful grip on the twisted fur. She was pretty sure N wouldn’t want a random clump of his hair rattling around, lost somewhere in his chassis to cause problems another day.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

The scissors worked their magic as a pile of oil stained matts piled up beside Uzi, but it truly felt like there was no end to the ones still plaguing N’s body.

“Jeez N, how did it get this bad?”

N didn’t answer right away. She watched his head hang lower, and felt his feet scuff the sheets of her bed as he brought his knees closer. He spoke so quietly she almost didn’t hear him, his voice low and full of pained melancholy; “No one wanted to help me before.”

Uzi felt her heart ache.  “So what, like… V and J would look after each other? And just… leave you to suffer?”  

He smiled at her over his shoulder, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Something like that, yeah. J always told me I had to learn to take care of myself. I guess I never really thought about how hypocritical it was at the time. She was our leader so I just… followed orders. At least as best I could.”

Uzi’s hand smoothed down his back, her fingers tracing the quickly healing lines of his most recent injuries. “Yeah well… I’m here now. You don’t have to worry about this happening again, okay?”

She felt his tail slowly curl around her, the cannister brushing tenderly up and down the small of her back. “Uzi y-you…” he trailed off and laughed softly under his breath with a small shake of his head. “You are singlehandedly the best thing that has ever happened to me. Across any of my lives.”

Uzi exhaled softly, letting the rhythmic slicing of the scissor blades cease for just a moment. She felt honoured… of course she did. But all this? This was nothing - the least she could do - and yet he treated this basic care as though it was the most bliss he had ever experienced. There was something so heartbreaking in that.

“You should have been treated better,” she said quietly. “This is like… the bare minimum they should have done for you.”

“Yeah well… I’m glad it’s you doing this for me now,” she could hear the pixel blip of his eyes closing peacefully. “…I don’t think I would want it to be anyone else.”

Uzi planted a gentle kiss against his shoulder and he trilled quietly in appreciation, twisting his head to squish his nose bump against her cheek before she pulled way.

She continued her delicate task with the upmost care and diligence. She was no barber, of course, and the length of the fur was choppier and more uneven than she probably would have liked, but over time it was beginning to resemble what Uzi hoped was its natural state. The fur puffed out of the port in a ring, not unlike a lion’s mane - a very shaggy, uneven lion’s mane, but… one nonetheless. She did her best to try and tidy it to at least something resembling a consistent length once she had tamed the internal blockages, using her comb to fluff it up and outward, clear of the portholes.

“How does that feel?” She asked, giving both a little ruffle. They were so soft, yet slightly tacky and crusted with old, dried oil, and she made a silent promise that she would give them a good clean too.

He hummed and gave a nod. With a soft click, she heard the mechanisms in his back come alive, and she shifted carefully to make room for the limbs as they extended slowly from his torso. N’s wingspan was impressive. She’d never really taken the time to appreciate them, especially this close before, as they spread and stretched and trembled like muscles weak from disuse. The blades scratched her walls and bumped a spanner off the edge of her bedside table, but Uzi didn’t care, too focused on the clear relief it brought N to finally move them again.

“…Thank you.”

“Hey, no worries.” Scratching her fingers under the fur trim, Uzi rested her chin between his shoulders, just shy of the nape of his neck, and let out a pleased, triumphant huff.

“Proud of your handywork?” He chuckled through his purrs.

“Yeah, something like that,”  Uzi mumbled, running a finger over the bladed feather closest to his back, her face bathed in the glow from the halo light on his wing joint. “Just don’t ask me to cut your hair anytime soon.”

N relaxed his wings so that they lay resting flat on the duvet around them, clearly relishing in the feeling of having them out for the first time in weeks. But Uzi couldn’t let herself sit still like this for long. She knew she wouldn’t want to move if she stayed here a moment longer, and she could feel the fur of his spine tickling her neck, bristly and sticky with oil and neglect.

Her job wasn’t done. Not yet.

“Hold still, alright?” She tapped her fingers against his casing as she peeled herself reluctantly away from his warmth. “I still need to clean you up.”

N seemed more than happy to comply, watching her curiously over his shoulder as she shuffled to the edge of the bed, throwing herself on her tummy so she could reach awkwardly beneath its frame. It was under here – she was certain. Even if it hadn’t been used in several months…

Her hand fumbled about the floor clumsily, clattering over random junk and abandoned projects long forgotten, but still she couldn’t find the familiar plastic case she was searching for. She slid further off the bed to reach deeper and heard a startled gasp from N as she threatened to tumble tail over head onto the floor below, but as she began to slip, two hands secured her carefully around her waist.

“Gotcha!” He chimed cheerfully and she snorted fondly. He had caught her for the second time today… He seemed to have a talent for it.

“Thanks buddy. Robo-Christ, where the hell is it…?” She yanked the draping covers up so she could peer more easily beneath the bed, and smacked her hand awkwardly around the floor, shoving aside boxes and debris until finally her optics picked up on the dusty, off-white corner of what she was looking for. She lunged for it, almost slipping out of N’s grasp as she scraped the container along the floor towards her. It was a basic little box, covered in a thin layer of dust and littered with about as many scratches as N. White with flecks and oil stains, and a dark green cross with the words ‘FIRST AID’ printed boldly on its surface. It had served Uzi well over the years – she’d never been the best at being careful during her work - but with her recently advanced healing factor it had become somewhat… obsolete now.

Well, maybe not as entirely as she’d once thought.

Uzi clicked the clasps open, still dangling nonchalantly over the edge of her bed, and thanked the universe that she had recently restocked before its last use. Bandages, medical tape, a rag, band aids, sterile gloves… but most importantly for this task, two small, glass bottles; one brown and filled with rubbing alcohol, and the other clear, containing distilled water.

“Uh, everything okay down there?” N asked. She could feel him leaning over to peek at what she was doing.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s okay, you can let me go now, I need to get some stuff from the bathroom.”

“Oh, sure.”

Uzi was grateful that N didn’t just drop her like a sack of bricks, but rather lowered her carefully down to the floor, and she pulled herself up to her feet, brushing herself off. With a smile, she reached out and tussled N’s hat, prompting a sunny grin back at her before she set off briskly to the bathroom.

She needed something for N’s mane and wing fur, if she could find literally anything at all useful in here. Hair care wasn’t really a top priority for most drones – after all, they didn’t need to worry like humans did about their hair getting oily or greasy over time, and any dust and debris was typically just combed out carefully. Besides, washing your hair when water posed a serious risk to your circuits never really seemed worth the time and effort. Still, there were brands out there for drone-safe dry shampoos and soaps – maybe combining those with some of the distilled water in her kit might work. It was worth a shot, anyway.

Uzi hunkered down on her haunches and rummaged around the shelves on the cabinet under the sink, at first greeted with a frankly obscene amount of moustache gel, then to her surprise some old, long expired human products from an age past; an almost empty bottle of mouthwash, blunt nail clippers, shaving cream…

Okay, maybe the shaving cream could be fun to play about with later, she thought, though her hope was beginning to wane. Humans used soap, she was pretty sure. Could they not have been actually useful for once and left her some before they all died out?

With a sigh, she creaked the door slowly closed, puzzling over thoughts in her mind. Maybe Lizzy would have something she could borrow… or, knowing her, barter for. But as she turned to return sorrowfully to her post, she stopped suddenly at the flickering flash of a distant childhood memory.

Laughing. Her… biting on something, getting used to her new teeth, barely a few weeks into her new body after being uploaded from her UNN shell. Then, her mothers voice scolding her lightly, pulling it away from her tiny nubby grip with a purple, glowing symbol she didn’t understand at the time.

It had been a bottle, she was sure. A bright pink bottle of shampoo.

Could it be…?

Uzi’s eyes flicked to the wall cabinet she was still frustratingly too short to reach the top of, and there, in the corner, she could just make out it’s shape, forgotten to time. An impish smirk curled on her lips as she leapt up, and as soon as she had a better visual, she activated her Solver around its form, yanking it down and freeing it from its long, silent vigil.

Jackpot. Ugh. Dusty, ancient… jackpot.

She rolled it around in her hands, feeling the tiny divots of little, toddler teeth under her fingertips. Uzi hoped it was still viable, and wouldn’t just dye N’s poor mane – although she couldn’t exactly imagine him minding all that much. An image sprung to mind of him flaunting a flashy, cotton-candy coloured mane with a wide, toothy grin, spinning on his heel to show off, and she snorted under her breath. He’d be happy either way at least, she felt pretty safe in that knowledge.

Yanking a towel from the creaking rail and swinging it over her shoulder, Uzi returned to her room, and N instantly perked up, his tail swaying a little more excitedly when he met her eye. At some point while she had been out, N had stripped off his jacket completely, and he now held it close to his chest as though it brought him the comfort a teddy might bring a child. “You find what you needed?” She rattled the bottle in her hand with a proud smirk and a hand on her hip, and N’s smile brightened further. “Oh woah! It’s so pink!”

She laughed, wiping the dust off with the corner of her jacket. “Yeah. Extremely. Not sure whose idea that was but it’s all we’ve got, so.” She sauntered over and tugged at his arm loosely until he swung his legs over and stood beside her.  

“I probably should have put this down when I was clipping your wing fur,” she muttered, brushing clumps roughly off the edge of her bed before she lay the towel down where he had been sitting.

“Here,” she patted it, and N clambered back onto the sheets, parking himself in the middle of the cloth, helping her up and onto the bed beside him. She gently hovered her hands over his waist before placing them there, giving him a little push, and he complied with her silent request, scooting a few inches forward. Uzi smiled and ran her fingers up the small of his back and he straightened up with a cheerful trill. “Alright, lets finally get you sorted.”

N watched her curiously, twisting his shoulders to peek back at her, and she gave him an affectionate, yet distracted chin scratch as she reached for the bottle of surgical spirit in her kit, setting it aside. She dumped a bowl of batteries out onto the bedside table, indifferent to the fact they simply rolled right off the edge, and very carefully poured a few glugs of distilled water into its bottom along with the last dregs of the ancient shampoo. The plan was simple enough; she would use this to help tackle his fur, while she used a spare rag dabbed with alcohol to wipe clean the years worth of oil built up on his casing.

Uzi pulled on a pair of vinyl gloves from her kit carefully. Even though her body was now host to squishy, probably pretty damp internal organs, the idea of water leaking into the joins of her fingers still filled her with instinctual dread. The last thing she wanted was to fry a circuit in her arm or something - regenerating missing limbs or healing over a gaping hole in her chest was one thing, but she had no idea how well her Solver could cope with water damage.

Scowling at the mixture with apprehension, Uzi pointed a finger at the bowl firmly. “Don’t. Kill me.” She muttered threateningly. She heard N snort, his back bouncing with a little giggle.

“Should I be worried at all about this?”

“No, you’re fine. Probably.” Uzi swirled her protected fingers about carefully in the water until soapy bubbles danced on its surface. She was pretty confident in N’s safety. She was only planning on using the foam itself, and even if a little water made its way onto his casing, he’d spent who-knew-how-long living out in an eternal, deathly snow-storm. Cyn must have made him weatherproof - a few drops of water was probably nothing to him.

Uzi scooped up a handful of soapy bubbled and scrunched them into the fibres of his mane, lathering them between her fingers. Almost instantly the soft, pale pink suds swallowed up the dust and oil, fading to grim greys and near blacks. She worked her fingers through the fur enthusiastically, scrunching and twirling it and massaging the soap into the hairline where it met his casing. She could hear and feel him purring again and she smiled, delighting in how the prickled spines and clumps parted into something softer.

“That nice?” She asked fondly, as she watched his tail wag cheerfully.

“Mhm,” he hummed softly. “It’s feels like a massage…”

The colour of his mane was more vibrant than she initially realised. As the years of grime, dust and oil faded with each new addition of shampoo, the dull gold stripes brightened to a vibrant yellow not unlike the hue of the hazard strips lining his wrists, thighs and heels. It already looked so much healthier, despite the haphazard length and missing sections along its stretch.

…The wonders a simple wash could do for a drone.

With a clean rag, Uzi ruffled the fur from the base of his tail up to between his shoulders to remove the foam, and then, she repeated the process again for both mane and wing fur. She couldn’t deny the relief it brought her – this was working - it was actually working. The bubbles foamed a duller pink, but a pink nonetheless, as the last remnants of his life in the wild washed away. This time as she dried his mane, it puffed up; fluffing out and bristling, each individual hair now free from the crusted prisons they had endured.

“It’s pretty,” she didn’t mean to say it out loud, but she was glad she did when N offered her the fondest smile over his shoulder.

“…It is?”

“Yeah,” she pulled the gloves off and tossed them on the floor so that she could truly feel the difference for herself. The tactile sensors of her finger pads revelled in its downy, bouncy texture, and how it twitched gently under her fingers as she hovered them slowly over their tips. Then she dug them into the thick fluff, scratching near the roots and N’s whole body rumbled in delighted approval.

His tail thumped joyfully against the mattress again, once, twice, and then curled around her, draping itself loosely around her waist like a living belt. She chuckled, then leaned forward to place a gentle kiss in a gap in the line between his shoulders, where new fur was just barely beginning to grow. She nuzzled there tenderly, thoughts turning over the abuse it had endured.

“No more scratching, yeah?” She said quietly. “And no more ripping out clumps of your fur.”

N wriggled slightly as though his back was chasing her lips. “I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that anymore,” he hummed with a smile in his voice. “I only did that because of the stress and pain, and, well… I definitely don’t feel stressed or in pain anymore.”

“Good,” she smiled, indulging him in another quick back kiss before she straightened up again.

N’s casing was a lot more straightforward to care for. Dampening the rag with the rubbing alcohol,  she wiped down his shoulders first, then slowly made her way down in crescent moon motions around each wing. He seemed to enjoy it just as much as when she had cleaned his fur, his casing rumbling with long, drawn out purrs - especially when she rubbed a little more vigorously under the fur of his wing ports.

When the rag became too saturated, she tossed it and began to tear off strips of bandage in its place, and slowly but surely, the ashy white of N’s casing became visible under the layers of both fresh and dried oil.

“Alright… I think we’re getting somewhere now,” Uzi mumbled, more to herself than him. Slowly and sleepily her sweetheart swayed as she scrubbed at the more stubborn marks and grooves.

The deeper scars were left darker and clearer now as the oil within their depths refused to yield to her. There were dozens… maybe hundreds of rake marks in total. Old, new, deep and dark, thin and pale; his casing told the long history of his desperation. Uzi traced them with her fingertips, and she heard the gentle questioning trill as N peeked over his shoulder at her. She hummed in response, leaning forward to bump her forehead against his temple.

“I’m gonna try combing your mane too,” she smoothed her knuckles down his spine again and smiled as N tilted to nuzzle his lips against her cheek. “Is that alright?”

“Mhm… This all feels so nice,” he hummed dreamily, his tail’s canister thumping slowly and happily against the mattress. “What a treat…”

She was as gentle with him as she could be. Based on how his fur puffed up and bristled at her touch, she was certain there had to be connecting tissues or pseudo-muscles within his frame – nerves that were sensitive to her touch. Of course, N’s pain tolerance was probably through the roof considering all he had been through, but she still didn’t want to cause him any unnecessary discomfort, and so she combed through his mane with the upmost care, starting with the tips before working her way down to the base where it met his casing.

There were less tangles here than she expected, but his fur was so thick that it was tricky to work with at first when she did find them. At times, Uzi’s wrist slipped and the comb snagged, but N didn’t yelp, or whine; in fact he seemed totally content. At one point, his breathing slowed so much she thought he might have slipped into sleep mode if not for the way he shifted and peeked back at her from time to time.

As she finished up at the base of his mane she exhaled deeply, reaching up to caress the curled locks of N’s hair, and he let out an affectionate trill. N always loved when she played with his hair. Something about it always made him melt completely… perhaps a lifetime of being just as touch-starved as her. She smiled, using the comb to slowly brush through the fine, silver strands, removing the dust and debris of the day, and N leaned back until his upper back was flush with her chest.

“You like that…?” She asked with a chuckle. N chirped softly in affirmation, wriggling his shoulders against her. She knew the intentions, the wording behind the sound and action.

‘Please keep going.’

She could have done this for hours. She adored how happy it made him… and he deserved every second of the fuss and pampering she bestowed on him. But there was little point in combing the same small area over and over…

Uzi absentmindedly slipped her fingers under the lip of N’s hat, and he gave a startled yelp when she tugged it free from his head, the pupils in the optics on N’s headband flickering about wildly in surprise. “W-What-?”

The fur on N’s back had puffed up now as though his hackles were raised in panic, and Uzi immediately felt guilt take over as she placed the hat gently by his side, running the backs of her fingers down his spine.

“Woah, hey. It was just me, you’re alright.” N’s shoulders loosened, as the hairs slowly relaxed back down under Uzi’s dutiful care. “You uh… you good?”

“Y-Yeah, sorry. I just wasn’t expecting that,” he patted the top of his head, his hair springing back each time under his fingers. “I feel so… weird and exposed without my hat.”

Uzi couldn’t help but snort at the irony. She slide her arm over his shoulder so that it draped loosely in front of his chest, and she rested her cheek atop it so that she could see his face. “N, you do realise you’re sat butt-naked on my bed, right? You’re like, about as exposed as you can possibly be.”

N quirked his head at her, his brow furrowing slightly in thought. “It’s… different though, with my hat,” he said slowly. “It feels different.”

With a soft hum, Uzi ran a hand up through his hair, her fingers gently combing through his argent locks. “Oh no,” she drawled in a low, teasing fashion. “I can see the top of your head. How scandalous! What will people think?”

N laughed, his own huge palm coming to a rest over her own. “It’s not that,” he said gently now, and Uzi could feel her face soften. “It’s just so cold suddenly. And… I think it just feels really weird, being able to see so much. It’s a little overwhelming. I don’t know how V does it.”

It occurred to Uzi in that instant how it must feel to have five extra, independent eyes taking in so much information at all times, and how disorienting it must have been to suddenly have 360 degree vision without warning. Each pupil was still darting back and forth, taking in every corner of her room as though it was completely new to him – or perhaps it was instinctive; a part of his code still hardwired for detecting threats. She wondered for a moment if the hat was a deliberate choice on Cyn’s part; to keep N focused, eyes forward - to lock onto his prey instead of getting distracted by whatever else was going on around him.

Empathy plucked at Uzi’s heartstrings and she leaned forward to peck his cheek. “Sorry. I should have asked instead of just snatching it off like that.”

N leaned into the contact with a gentle, low purr, as he shifted his head so that their nose bumps touched. “Hey… it’s okay, honest.” His eyes closed with a pixelated beep, and the optics on his head dimmed a touch. Even without looking, Uzi could feel them beginning to settle on her. “I trust you.”

Those words meant more to Uzi than she knew how to express, her heart doing fond, giddy leaps in her chest cavity. She let her forehead meet his and tried to keep her voice steady. “Let me take care of you, yeah?” She asked quietly.

“Yeah,” he replied tenderly. “…Please.”

Chapter Text

It was rare to find such serenity in Uzi’s room.

The regular sounds of shrill welding and blasting nightcore had been replaced with that of low purring and the rustling of a comb’s teeth through silky drone hair.

It was so peaceful. Relaxing, even. Uzi had never realised before just how satisfying it was to take care of someone else. After all, until recently, no one had ever let Uzi close enough to experience this type of bliss – and she’d only ever taken care of herself out of sheer necessity. It hadn’t been anything like this… she couldn’t have anticipated the tremendous amount of joy she now got to share in with a partner she never thought she’d ever be lucky enough to have.

She wondered silently if perhaps this was why Nori liked to brush her hair for her sometimes. It had been one of the first things she wanted to do when she had tested out her prototype body - right after hugging Uzi in a servo-snapping hug that rivalled N’s own in strength.

Admittedly, Uzi had scoffed at first. She didn’t need looking after; she’d spent her whole life taking care of herself just fine. But then Nori had sat her down on the floor in front of the sofa, and within seconds Uzi had melted into a trance at the comfort her mother’s touch brought her.

She’d cried a little too. She didn’t know why, and it made her feel stupid, but… she did. She cried. Uzi wept tears that felt like they would never stop flowing… maybe because she realised all at once what she had missed out on for so much of her life. What she could have had if only fate hadn’t been so cruel and snatched her mother away. Maybe things would have been better, easier, less lonely-

“Uzi…?” The soft rumble of N’s sleepy voice stirred Uzi from her thoughts. She rubbed at her visor before acknowledging him.

“Hm?”

N cast a concerned look over his shoulder at her, his tail twitching anxiously. “O-Oh… are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I just… Happy tears, I think. ‘Cause I’ve got you now, or like, whatever.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie; more a half-truth. Sure there had been some grief in the mix, but all that she had lost, all that she had yearned for in her life was sitting in front of her now. Someone to love. Someone who loved her. A soft smile curled the corners of N’s lips, and he leaned back again so that his back bumped into her chest. Uzi shifted her hand, letting it glide from his hair, down his cheek to cradle his jaw, as she pressed her lips sweetly against his cheek.

“What were you going to ask?” She mumbled against his casing.

“Oh, u-uh…” Uzi could just make out a blush that blinked onto N’s visor as he began to wring the fabric of his jacket about in his hands. “I just… I was thinking it’d be nice if like, we could do this more often, y’know? It feels nice to be… I-I mean, I never thought anyone would…” he trailed off, trying to find his words as his fingertips came to rest delicately against the back of her hand.

“Hey, it’s okay. I know what you’re trying to say,” Uzi offered softly when it became clear N had lost them and his nerve. ‘It feels nice to be taken care of. I never thought anyone would ever treat me like this.’  

…She knew the feeling well.

There was something about N’s eyes, so soft and pleading as they met hers… oh Robo-God, he could melt her heart in seconds, she was sure of it. Uzi let her hands slip back to his shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “N, I will brush your hair, and tidy up your mane and wings every night for the rest of our lives if you want me to.”

N straightened up a little in his enthusiasm, eyes shining with delight, and she grinned, ruffling his hair before running the comb through his disturbed, fluffy locks. “I would love that,” he trilled with a wag of his tail. “And I’ll look after you too, I promise.”

‘You already do,’ Uzi thought with a fond eyeroll. ‘You have every moment since the day we met.’

They were both quiet again for a moment, a comfortable stillness that neither felt the need to break as Uzi finally finished brushing the dust and debris from N’s hair. He seemed disappointed when she stopped, replacing the brush on the messy, haphazard bedside tabletop; she could see the faint pupils on his headband all watching her movements expectantly.

How could she resist, truly, their soft, curious gaze? She kissed each one, and felt N melt a little more – something until now she didn’t think was possible. He wiggled his shoulders happily, but in doing so, Uzi’s optics caught the distinct lack of movement in his wings; the way they dragged limply against her sheets whenever he twisted his upper body about.

“…Are they okay? How are they feeling?”

“Oh, my wings? …A little stiff,” N admitted. “And numb, if that’s even possible. But better than they were before.”

Uzi nodded slowly, lifting one limb gently to examine it. She could hear the grinding in his joints, feel the creaking and cracking under her fingers every time he bent the elbow of his wing. Everything had been so seized up, trapped in his body, it was no wonder he had been so desperately uncomfortable. She shifted her hands to redistribute its weight, then slowly, without even really thinking, encouraged the joint in the socket of his wing port to move in small circles, bending the elbow slightly as she did.

N hummed curiously, offering her a small, lopsided smile. “Engineer, hairdresser, and robo-physiotherapist? Is there anything you can’t do?” 

Uzi barked a laugh. “I’m not exactly doing much. It’ll just help your oil-flow if you move them about. Trust me, I’ve been there, hunched over a project for so long that it felt like my legs had disconnected,” she scanned his wing, running a finger over the casing. “And like… it’s good to make sure there’s no serious damage.”

“Well, if there was any, it’d be healing by now,” he offered gently. Uzi felt his tail curl around her waist. “But I really appreciate it. It’s sweet that you want to take care of me like this.”

Uzi reached across and brushed the back of her knuckles over his cheek affectionately, and he trilled, leaning against her touch. ‘Of course I do,’ she thought. He brought out a selfless side to her, one she didn’t know she had – buried under years of living in a desperate survival mode. But this…? This was one of the few things she was unwaveringly certain of; that she wanted to look after N for the rest of her life. That she wanted to be there for him in whatever way he needed.

She was starting to think that, maybe, that was part of what love was all about.

N let her twist and rotate each wing without any fuss, and with each movement the groaning of metal eased. The bladed feathers slowly shifted, the dull scrape of metal on metal as they grew easier for him to move. Uzi smiled, letting her fingers slip between two near the far end to better support the weight in her hands; the forelimb alone was almost the length of her entire arm, and she hooked her shoulder beneath the wing’s elbow, careful of the spines that sprouted around it.

She couldn’t lie to herself, it was admittedly exciting as an engineer being so close to such advanced technology – the glowing, yellow ring near her face thrumming with the anti-gravitational energy needed to let N hover in flight. It was mesmerising too in its radiant colour –she had often wondered to herself if it served to lure in prey, or if it was simply a design choice on Cyn’s part. Either way, she couldn’t tear her eyes away, transfixed until N broke her from her stupor.

“Uzi? You good?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah! Sorry. Your wings are just uh… really cool.”

N hummed proudly, and she felt his feathers widen out as though he was trying to display them for her. Uzi laughed and gave him an impressed nod. “Yeah, dude, they’re super pretty. Consider me wooed.” N puffed up as he beamed back at her, clearly delighted at her words.

As Uzi’s fingers fidgeted near the edge of N’s wing, they tussled the blades there, and she felt her mind and focus begin to drift towards older memories. She found herself thinking back to when she had first seen these wings – when she had first seen N – when they had both been very different people. It felt like a lifetime ago, and perhaps, in a strange way, it was, since it felt like her life had started anew since the day they had saved the world together. As she ran her fingers down the length of a blade, she felt a twitch in the space between her chest and left shoulder, and another memory sprung to mind.

“Oh hey, remember when you stabbed me with one of these?”

It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Though she’d meant it light-heartedly, N still hissed through his teeth and she felt him try to curl back inward, body and wings both. “Y-Yeah, I uh… Sorry, about that.”

“Woah, no, no, hey, I didn’t mean-” Uzi felt her voice die in her throat as movement caught in the corner of her eye. Something dangling lifelessly – one of the blades, so loose in its holding that it no longer moved with the rest of its kind. 

“N? Your, uh…”

N followed her gaze, and shrugged nonchalantly with one shoulder. “Oh, it’s just dead metal,” he said softly. “You can just pull it out. It happens sometimes.”

Her fingers twitched towards it, but she couldn’t help her hesitation. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’ll grow back.”

“And it wont hurt?”

“Not at all. Not that one anyway.”

Uzi felt her face twist into a small grimace as she reached out and clasped her fingers around the limp feather, and when she pulled briskly, it came free with a small click. There was no trickle of oil as she had expected, and N didn’t flinch in the slightest, so relief washed away her previous apprehension.

The blade was light to her surprise, as she twisted it back and forth, mesmerised by its sheen in the ambient light. “Oh man, I could make a sick as hell sword out of this.”

N smiled, quirking his head at her fondly. “You probably could, yeah! Although you’ll end up with like, twenty swords by the end of the year if you end up using every one I moult.”

Grinning, Uzi tapped its edge against his shoulder. “That sounds like the opposite of a problem.” She leaned awkwardly over his wing to place it in front of him, mind buzzing excitedly with thoughts and plans on hilt designs – but that could wait for another day. When she let herself recline again, she let one hand slip under the join where it met the soft fur of his back, and lifted his wing to press her lips against the casing of his upper limb close to the propulsion ring.

‘So you know I’m not mad you stabbed me,’ she thought, though it felt like a bit of an excuse. Really, deep down, she knew she just wanted to kiss him because she could. Maybe N could sense part of that longing because it was one he shared in. He shifted slightly, stretching his wing out, and Uzi smiled, planting a line of kisses along the limb back towards his shoulder blade. She lingered at a spot about halfway, relishing in the warmth and the thrum of his casing as he purred and trilled and giggled in delight.

Her boy... her beautiful, sweet, wonderful N.

***

Any shame or fear over his scars seemed to be long gone now.

N seemed quite happy to spread out across Uzi’s bed when he was invited, belly up with his head laying contently in her lap. She had swung her legs over the edge to more comfortably support him, swaying them casually back and forth as she ran her fingers through his clean, silver locks.

Complete bliss had overcome him again. Eyes closed, headband bulbs dim, he lay with his hands tucked up like little sentinel arms close to his chest… but not defensively. They were limp, and floppy, and Uzi delighted in how they swayed and bobbed whenever she moved her leg in such a way that it shifted his shoulders.

After a while, she took one and played with his fingers and the softer, more nubby, canine-like claws that sprouted from their tips. These ones were silicone coated on their tips and undersides - built for a different purpose than the sharp blades made for slicing through prey. Better grip; for climbing, or for clinging onto and devouring slippery corpses. Of course now, in domestic life, he had had adapted to using them in different ways – Uzi had noted how he often favoured his claws when using touchscreens, using them now like additional finger pads to navigate technology far more dexterously than any Worker could.

Now though, they seemed more preoccupied with scrunching imaginary fabric in the air, or playing with Uzi’s hand in kind, tracing up and down her palm and weaving between her fingers. He brought her hand to his lips, planting a chaste kiss against the triangle light, before guiding it slowly down to his chest, and letting it rest there. No fear, no discomfort, only an everlasting trust in her to hold him close and keep him safe.

It was humbling. With his head tilted back in delight, his neck, chest, and stomach were all completely exposed to her; the three most vulnerable parts of a drone’s body whenever it came to a hungry Disassembler or Solver drone… or even just disgruntled teammates. For someone who had known such intense hardships for most of his life, to so openly display himself like this to her spoke volumes on his high opinion of her.

Gently, she ran her palm back and forth against his chest panel, and N’s hand relaxed to grant her free movement. Her fingers naturally found themselves tracing the skull shaped LED glowing bright against the black glass, and N peeked an eye open to gaze up at her. She felt her cheeks flush, uncertain of where N’s boundaries lie, and yet there was nothing but love and affection radiating from every part of him.

Still, she felt the need to ask; “Is this okay?”

“Yeah… I’d let you know if it wasn’t.”

Uzi nodded slowly. “Okay, good… yeah.” The click of tension released in her shoulders as she relaxed with a sigh and offered him a smile. When she scratched behind his headband, his throat warbled a beautiful trill, little fang tips peeking out between his lips as he tipped his head back even more, and she leaned down to plant a quick kiss against the corner of his mouth. “Robo-God, who decided you get to be so cute, huh?”

He giggled, legs tucking up now, and she felt his tail wind around her ankle. “I’m cute?”

Uzi’s smile widened and she tentatively let her finger pads rub back and forth against the glass of his chest playfully, rocking his arms about again. “The cutest, you big goofball.”

There was something that looked almost like relief behind N’s eyes, like the affirmation had settled a long gnawing concern of his. Then he closed them, content, his fingers once more working at kneading the air as she continued to smooth circles over his chest. He seemed to enjoy getting gentle scratches just over the LED icon; he trilled and rose his chest up at her touch when she did, stretching out his back in a small arch. It reminded her of the old cat videos she often watched on ancient, human video hosting sites, and her heart softened fondly.

“That nice?”

“Mhm…” She could feel the vibrations running up her arms from how deeply he was purring now. The tip of his dark, grey tongue now slipped out from between his lips and she snorted, flicking it gently with what might have been her nail if she hadn’t been a robot. It disappeared again with a quick ‘thwip’, and with a pixelated beep, N blinked up at her in surprise, quirking his head like a dog might. Uzi mirrored the movement and a wide smile curled N’s lips, as he tilted the opposite way. When Uzi again followed his movements, he burst out with a laugh.

“What are we doing?” He asked.

“I don’t know, you started it.”

N’s eyes grew fond as his laughter faded, and he reached up to caress her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Y’know… I’m really glad,” he said quietly, his claws clacking comfortingly against Uzi’s casing.  “I’m glad we get to be like this now. I’m glad everything’s okay… and that we made it to this moment. Before I met you, I never realised my life could actually be… y’know. So happy.”

Flashes of a life before N came to the forefront of Uzi’s mind. Those dark and cold, and terribly lonely days before the warmth of his smile, the weight of him as they embraced, the deep, emotional stability and security she felt whenever she was around him. She thought about how once she had thought she wouldn’t live long enough to see her life change for the better, because why would it? And then it did. Miraculously, in the most bizarre way possible, under the strangest of circumstances… it did.

Running her fingers tenderly down his chest, she let them graze over the soft silicone of N’s belly. “The feeling’s mutual,” she mumbled gently, leaning into his touch. “Not to get all gross and sappy but like… you make life feel like it’s gonna be okay now.”

The radiance of N’s smile was enough for Uzi to know she’d never need to miss her brief time with the sun. He was, and always would be, a vessel of warmth and light that rivalled any cosmic power. “You too,” he whispered sweetly. “I feel safe when I’m with you.”

She smoothed her palm gently back and forth over N’s tummy, letting her fingers grace his lower ribs, then over the little bump of his stomach - turgid to a comfortable degree from his last meal. N had mentioned it with a laugh once; how his midriff had been practically concave in the days before he had met her, his body constantly teetering on the edge of starvation. He’d joked about it so light-heartedly, and yet it bristled Uzi to think about how scary it must have been, not knowing when you would next eat, or if you’d survive after an unsuccessful hunt.

It was such a relief to her that he didn’t have to worry about that now. He had a safe and stable food source provided by the medical bay - he didn’t have to gorge himself in desperation to make it through the week. Every day he came home knowing they had exactly what they needed.

Uzi gave his belly a firm pat, then rubbed it, and N’s tail wagged harder, the canister thumping dully against the side of the bed as he burst out with a joyous chuckle. It was music to her auditory sensors.

Twisting his head lazily to the side with a dreamy expression, she felt him wriggle to pull himself closer to her. He nuzzled gently against her tummy, shifting the fabric of her shirt with his nose bump until it lifted just enough to press his warm lips against the silicone of her stomach. Uzi’s breath hitched in her throat out of surprise, and N must have felt her bristle as he pulled away a few inches to look up at her anxiously.

“O-Oh… sorry, are- are you okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah no, it’s totally fine. You just kind of- it made me jump is all,” she laughed awkwardly, a small pang of guilt worming into her core at having made him think she didn’t reciprocate the affection. Still he hesitated, brow furrowed in worry, and she returned to running her fingers through his hair, letting her voice soften. “It’s okay, really. I promise. You can like… y-y’know… as you were, or whatever.”

When she scratched her fingertips just behind his headband he naturally melted and she felt his shoulders relax again. His cheek brushed against her belly first, eyes half-lidded, then with one final gaze up, seeking permission and her wholehearted consent, he planted another gentle kiss there. Then another, a little to the left. And another, a little higher. It made her heart flutter and her circuits tingle; his breath and lips both tickled where they met her silicone. He nuzzled her again with his nose bump, and she could just see the giddy curl at the corners of his mouth.

“You’re so soft and warm,” he said sweetly. She could see his fingers curling and uncurling languidly in the space close to his chest again, the gentle clicking of plastic punctuating the air between his purring. He rubbed his cheek against her tummy and placed his auditory port there, giggling. “And I can hear it.”

Uzi snorted, so endlessly fond of him. “Hear what?”

“Your last meal, swishing about. It sounds like a whole ocean in there.” Uzi burst out into a surprised laugh that was cut short when she felt his hand fall on top of her own, guiding her palm to rest over his heart. “It’s nice,” he whispered. “Peaceful.”

‘Robo-God, I am so in love with you,’ was all Uzi could think in that moment as she felt his heart beating rhythmically against her palm. She played absentmindedly with a tuft of his hair near his headband, twirling it around her finger and watching it spring back into place as the twitchy pupils in the bulbs of his band all flicked back up to her face.

Rolling onto his side now, N pressed his forehead to her belly and lifted Uzi’s hand up to his lips, peppering her fingers in quick, little, tickly kisses. Then, the light on the back of her hand received similar affection as he brushed his fingertips back and forth against her palm. Before she knew it, N was slowly rising from her lap, planting a line of kisses up her arm that increased in duration each time.

“Dude, were you coded in the 18^th Century or something?” Uzi laughed as he approached, but N only opened his visor eyes a touch to look up at her with an enamoured, half lidded gaze, and she felt her heart do a giddy little twirl in her chest. N continued slowly, gently, until his nose bump met the hem of her sleeve, and she watched him try to process the obstacle, pushing it about with his snout before nibbling it lightly with his front-most teeth.

Uzi unzipped her hoodie about half the way down, letting the fabric fall down her arm and exposing her shoulder. N chirped cheerfully in thanks and continued until he made it to where the joint met her casing, pausing to sigh against the metal and caress the underside of her arm with his fingertips.

He always seemed to hesitate whenever he was here, and she often wondered why. What was going on in his head, as he hovered at her shoulder, so deep in thought? Did he think about the drones he had killed, snuffing out their lives with his teeth at their necks? Maybe it wasn’t easy for him to rest against her like this. Maybe there was a part of him, however small, that was afraid he would relapse and hurt her too.

Or maybe, just maybe, she was the one spiralling on his behalf.

“Hey… you okay?” She asked, bumping her forehead against his hairline.

“Hm? Oh, yeah,” he said quietly. “I just… I like that you’re not scared when I’m here.” He ran his fingers up and down her arm, the rounded tips of plastic claws clicking harmlessly over the ridges of metal, as eyes soft and sleepy gazed at her upper chest.

She shifted her arm to give him a light squeeze. Oh, so that was what it was. He found comfort in this – in knowing he could be this close to her, and that she didn’t expect a swift, cold death at his hands. She knew his intentions. He only wanted to give her all the love and affection he had in his heart.

“Of course I’m not scared. You know I trust you completely, right?”

He smiled up at her tenderly. “I know… That’s what’s so amazing to me.” N nuzzled back into the crook of her neck, his lips first brushing there before he planted another line of kisses trailing closer and closer to the join where her neck met her torso.

Uzi snorted, her head feeling warmer as her cooling fans whirred away trying to combat the rising temperature. Still, she tilted her head to let him continue his path, running her fingers back up into his hair. N purred again in delight, nuzzling at the side of her neck softly, before he shifted and planted a tender kiss against her throat. It tickled – the pressure of it felt oddly different here, and his purring rumbled through semi-robotic, semi-organic nerves and tissues she didn’t know existed there. He seemed to be caught in a lovestruck daze as he cradled the nape of her neck and kissed her there again and again, from just shy of her chest to the join where it met the base of her chin.

She felt her own chest rumble, a soft trill escaping her lips like the sweet, delicate song of a bird. She watched the lazy hang of N’s tail pick up in pace as it wagged excitedly, and she could feel his lips curl into a delighted smile. Again he kissed her there, though as he grinned she could feel his fangs poke against her casing and she shifted lightly, cupping his cheek as a gentle warning.

“Hey… careful, okay?” She said softly, nestling her chin between two of the eyes on his headband. “I don’t mean it literally when I say ‘bite me’, you know.”

The teeth disappeared behind his lips again and he rubbed his nose bump affectionately back and forth against the joint of her chin. “Sorry,” he mumbled sweetly. “You just- you sound so pretty when you purr.”

Uzi scoffed lightly and rolled her eyes, forgetting that N could see her through his extra optics, and he pulled back with a mock scowl. “I mean it, Uzi!”

She threw her hands up defensively. “I know! I know. Sorry. I need to like… get better at the whole ‘I’m a person worthy of being loved’, thing or whatever. I’m working on it.” N’s face faltered in empathy, and she reached up to caress his cheek with the back of her knuckles. “I know you wouldn’t lie to me. It helps when you say cute stuff like that. Promise.”

N sighed deeply, a tiny smile catching on his lips. He let his head rest against her shoulder again as he ran a hand slowly up and down the small of her back. “Uzi, you are so worthy of being loved,” he said quietly. “And if I have to tell you that every day until you believe it yourself, then I will. Because you deserve to know. You really, really do.” His eyes grew heavy as he nuzzled against her casing.

“You deserve…” he trailed off, and Uzi glanced down at him curiously. What was he thinking about now? N fidgeted with the hem of Uzi’s shirt, then timidly ducked his fingertips underneath to run up and down the silicone near her spine. This time, Uzi didn’t flinch, though she did feel the oddest sensation as his palm touched down on her vertebrae, something a little more sensitive and…

…Soft?

N’s eyes went from sleepy to stunned. Then a delighted smile caught on his lips as he brushed the backs of his knuckles over her metal backbones. “Uzi, you have a mane too! A little one!” He rubbed something that felt like fine hair connecting to her back between his fingers and thumb.

“Oh,” Uzi blinked, surprised by the feeling. “Huh... weird. I didn’t even notice.” 

Uzi gladly let N run his hand all the way up and down her bare back as he purred fondly against her neck again, completely lost in his bliss. He mumbled the sweetest praises as he did, and Uzi snorted as she rested her cheek against his temple. What a big softie. She couldn’t believe they’d all been so scared of him once. Those days felt so long ago now.

N eventually paused between her shoulders as his fingers caught on a small trench in her back, redirecting to let them follow it along a new path. It was a scar, one of a pair that opened frequently to allow her wings to sprout, and N now seemed lost in thought as his thumb smoothed back and forth gently over it, tracing up to the tip of her shoulder blade and down to where it dipped close to her spine.

“Uzi, can I?” He asked so softly, his eyes pleading. “I want to look after you, the way you’ve looked after me.”

It took her a moment to realise what he was asking; and the notion stunned her briefly as his request sank in. “N…” she brushed one of his bangs out of his eyes. “You know my wings are fine at the moment, right? I don’t need any special treatment.”

“I-I know, I just…” He trailed off, eyes flickering in thought. “I want to pamper you too, y’know…? And make you feel as loved as you make me feel.”

Uzi felt her heart thrum, swelling with dizzy fondness, and her wings squirmed under her casing in desperation, filled with the longing to be cherished by him. ‘Please, please, please-’

“…Okay. If you insist.”

N sat up so fast in his excitement he almost headbutted her in the side of the jaw. He knelt in front of her expectantly with his hands in his lap, tail perked and wagging so hard she could feel the breeze it was creating. She couldn’t help but laugh, reaching out to scratch him under his chin, before turning her attention to her clothes.

As she slipped off her jacket, she couldn’t be sure why she suddenly felt overcome with nerves. It wasn’t exactly like she had anything to hide, and yet her fingers trembled as she hesitated at the hem of her shirt, tugging it roughly up her torso. Maybe it was the thought of being truly seen in her entirety. She had spent a lifetime building walls to protect herself mentally – what was this, if not just another barrier she was hiding behind? It was scary to be so vulnerable and exposed – it was so completely alien to her.

Perhaps N could sense her trepidation. His brow lowered in concern, and he quirked his head at her as she tossed her shirt over to where N’s own jacket now lay, folded tidily on her sheets. “You okay…?” He asked softly, taking her hand, so tiny in his own. He ran his thumb over the triangle light on the back of her hand. “We like… don’t have to, if you’d rather not. You know I’d never do anything you don’t want me to do.”

“O-Oh, no, no! It’s like, totally fine,” Uzi placed her free hand on the one cradling hers, and tapped her fingers against his casing reassuringly. A violet blush blinked onto her visor. “It’s stupid, sorry. I’m just… uh…”

“…Self conscious?”

“Yeah. Something like that, I guess.”

N hummed softly, and she felt all of his eyes cast over her as she sat completely bare before him. Then, he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “You don’t have anything to be self conscious of,” he said tenderly with a gaze so adoring. “You look wonderful. You always do.”

It felt as though the blush on her visor was brightening, her face growing warm, and she scoffed in mock distain as she twisted her head away. “Ew, gross, you’re so sappy.”

But N knew her. He knew her better than anyone in the world - and he saw it for what it truly was; an opportunity. Beaming, N leaned forward and peppered her cheek in kisses, nuzzling his nose bump against her casing. Uzi burst out in laughter, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Ugh, disgusting! Affection.”

N giggled. “What are you talking about? Uzi, you were literally just washing my mane and giving me tummy rubs!”

Uzi grumbled through her smile, huffing against his own cheek. She pulled him a little closer until timidly she let their bare chests brush, and she instantly felt a gentle, relaxing thrum of energy radiate from the point of contact, spreading slowly through the wire veins of her body to the very tips of her fingers and toes.

It seemed like N felt it too. He wrapped his arms around her a little more securely, resting his chin on her shoulder as he trilled happily by her auditory processor, smoothing a hand slowly over the small of her back. If he had held her like that for the rest of time, if she had existed only tangled in his warm, safe embrace… well, Uzi decided quite quickly that she would have loved that more than anything else in the universe.

Something clicked – or more accurately, blipped into Uzi’s conscious mind, redirecting her attention, and she realised quickly that it seemed that there was more to this contact than a simple, calming energy. Something new had appeared on her HUD - a diagnostics tab… but it wasn’t for herself, no, it was for N. She could see all his vital readings; his heartrate, oil levels, even his emotional wellbeing.

Blinking like little messages below his monitors were what she could only assume were the signals being sent out from his core’s emotional administering system to his CPU, and unlike the technical processes and long strings of code she had come to expect from a drones inner workings, they existed very simply as single words…

HAPPY. LOVE. SAFE.

Were… were their cores broadcasting to each other? Was this a weird NFC type thing? This had never happened before – so why now…?

“Uzi? Are you okay?”

“Huh? O-Oh! Yeah, yeah,” Uzi flushed at the sudden realisation that this was likely a two way situation, and that he in turn could read whatever output her emotions were giving off… which was probably a whole lot of confusion at this moment. She closed her eyes and kissed the crook of N’s neck, focusing instead on the comfort of his warmth and the softness of his mane between her fingers. “…I just wasn’t expecting all this.”

N pulled back just enough to meet her eye and smiled at her gently. He pressed his nose bump to her own and nuzzled there affectionately with a quiet, comforting chirp, his hand gliding up to the space between her shoulders again. “It’s nice though, right?” He breathed quietly in the space between their lips. “It’s not like, a bad unexpected thing, is it?”  

“Heh… nah,” Uzi reached up to ruffle his hair with both her hands, and focused on her core, skimming through and deciphering the unfamiliar code currently at work within her. When the pieces fell into place, she experimented with broadcasting something to N, this time on purpose;

NICE SURPRISE.

She was certain he got it by the increased wag in his tail and the way he squeezed her a little closer, and a ping appeared on her own HUD.

GOOD. LOVE YOU.

“Love you too, N.” Uzi fluffed his hair up a little rougher for good measure, before pulling back to address him. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, which I never am, obviously, but I’m pretty sure you were going to give me a massage before we got so distracted.”

“Oh! Yeah!” N pressed a quick kiss to Uzi’s nose bump before letting her go and sitting up straighter again, patting his lap in invitation.

It took them both a moment to get comfortable. When Uzi tried to sit on him while he knelt, she simply slipped down his legs like the worlds shallowest slide, and so instead N crossed his long, gangly limbs into as small a nest as he could to support her.  But he hesitated the moment Uzi fell into place; she could feel a sudden stiffness in his limbs as the hands that were gliding down her sides froze. She was about to ask what was wrong, a nervous, empathetic bristle running down her own spine, when she felt knuckles against the middle of her upper back, faintly grazing against warped casing. Her body shuddered involuntarily as flashes of bright, dazzling, amber lights flickered across her vision, then Death’s eyes so close to her own; two, vibrant X’s in the eye sockets of a long dead host… just before… before…

“I’m so sorry… I couldn’t stop her,” N said in a small voice, caressing the space with his fingertips now. “…I wasn’t fast enough.”

She knew the spot too well. She couldn’t it see, but clearly Cyn had left a mark on her back where she had struck her from behind. The memory left a bitterness on her tongue; recalling the taste of her own oil as it pooled in her mouth seconds before her body failed and died for the first, terrifying time. Uzi took a slow, deep breath.

“It’s okay. She can’t hurt us anymore, remember?” She managed to keep her voice from trembling for the most part, clearing her throat as a cover. “Does it look, uh… bad?”

“It looks… painful,” he deflected with a twitch of his tail, clearly cautious of his words. “Does it hurt if I touch it?”

“No. No, it’s okay.”

N hummed softly in the back of his throat, and she felt his hand trace close to the centre of an indent she hadn’t realised existed. Uzi leaned against him, then tilted her head back, her brow furrowing in concern. N’s eyes, distant only for a moment, relaxed when they met hers and he smiled again. With a dull clink of glass against glass, his forehead met hers and he mumbled against her hat; “Can I see your wings, my dear?”

She’d have done anything if it meant pulling N’s focus away from those terrible memories. Organic muscles wriggled and squirmed within her, and a pressure intensified in her upper back until they finally sprung forth, ripping and tearing through her casing to spread as wide as they could. Long, bat-like digits trembled as they stretched out, a satisfying feeling overcoming Uzi as they finally curled into something a bit more relaxed in posture.

N jumped slightly in surprise at their rather intense emergence, but settled quickly, his voice fond when he spoke. “Oh, there they are!” He chimed, caressing the backs of his fingers down the length of their forearms.

Uzi flinched involuntarily at the touch. She didn’t mean to – in fact she felt guilty for it, but the last time someone had touched her wings, it had been a disguised Cyn, and Uzi could still feel her feet crushing it down as she walked across it, the cold, steel blade slicing through its membrane as she prepared to end Uzi’s life. Apparently her body remembered, even if she herself had tried to keep the memory at a distance.

“Sorry, my bad,” the words tumbled out of her before N had a chance to comment. The wings curled more around her, instinctively protective. “T-They’re uh, a little sensitive or whatever.”

Uzi felt his hands instead steady her shoulders, his thumbs brushing back and forth over the crook of her neck. “You good?” He asked softly.

“Yeah. Yeah it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” she smiled at him over her shoulder reassuringly. “It just feels kinda weird, like… not what I’m used to, I guess.”

She wondered how much of it came down to being so starved of a gentle touch for her whole life, and how much was down to the completely different nervous system running through her wings. Drones could sense touch – they had tactile sensors all over their bodies underneath their casing, but it was a far duller sensation in comparison to the often overstimulating feeling of something brushing lightly against her wings or tail. Sometimes it was even stressful; sending a tidal wave of inputs rushing through her processors all at once, in a way she just hadn’t learned to handle yet.

In the same way that her core now beat instead of ticked, having muscles and skin and bones in parts of her body was something that still felt so alien to her. Being a host to something truly living… it was frighteningly fresh and raw sometimes, even now, even though she had lived like this for months now.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered sympathetically. “I don’t really remember what it felt like when I first turned. Or, well, if I turned. My memories are still a little scattered; I know V was like you briefly before Cyn-” he winced, and she felt his fingers tremble. She steadied them gently with her own. “Maybe I died tied to that tree because you weren’t there. Or, maybe I fell under her control too, at the gala, before she changed us. I just… I don’t know. I wish I did. Maybe I’d know what to do for you now.”

“N…” Uzi’s wings unfurled slightly. “You do way more for me than you realise. You think I’d let anyone else do this? Robo-Christ, I think I’d rather eat cement.” At his chuckle, she smiled and flopped back against him, reaching up to scratch her fingers against his jaw. “Yeah, that’s right, laugh it up, big guy! But you know it’s true. And like, I don’t mind you touching my wings, really. It’s something I want to get used to.”

“Alright… if you say so.”

Hesitant hands glided down to the base where jagged casing now met fleshy limb, and N tested the waters carefully, brushing first only a pinkie over the boundary and onto her skin. Uzi closed her eyes as the muscles twitched, then relaxed under his finger pad, and felt as more fingertips gradually made their way across, pausing a few inches over the bony shoulder joint. When Uzi didn’t protest, he pressed down a little firmer and rubbed circles there slowly, the skin wrinkling in bunches and folds as he pushed it about.

Uzi shuddered, and then, to her surprise, completely melted with a quiet, rumbly purr. All the tension she had been holding in all the muscles both within her casing, and now outside of it, relaxed; like a valve releasing the dangerously dense pressure from within her body. She could hear the ticking of her inner workings; grinding gears and tense servos working to a performance they hadn’t achieved in years.

A light chuckle blessed her audio processors as a thumb ran over the bony outcrop to the base of a tiny spine. “Aw, haha. You’re not falling asleep on me already, are you?”

Uzi could only grunt back at him. Her processors felt foggy as her head flopped forward, and she found her fingers curling and uncurling in her lap over the ridges of her metal legs. Her fangs clicked and chattered together almost unconsciously as her tail emerged too, sliding around his waist to intertwine with his own.

N’s wagging tail, once perked and upright, relaxed down onto the blankets, curling in turn like a helix around Uzi’s. It felt so natural, like interlocking their fingers when they walked. There was always a deep level of comfort in the gesture too, like a silent voice saying; ‘I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re safe now,’ and Uzi believed it wholeheartedly, every single time.

So lost in her bliss, Uzi scarcely noticed when N’s face drew closer to her back, snuffling with his nose bump near her scars as he continued massaging the upper arm of her wing, until she felt the tiniest flick of something warm and wet against the sharp plastic edge that met her skin. She jumped, startled, which in turn alarmed her doting boyfriend, who straightened up in surprise and twisted his head about as if looking for the culprit.

“Wh- N, did you just lick me?” She blinked at him over her shoulder as she tried to process his actions. Did she bleed when her wings burst out? Probably, and she couldn’t exactly bring herself to be mad when she knew full well what he was – what he had originally been built for. “You’re not tasting me are you?” She turned her tone to a gentle tease. “Reverting back to your drone devouring days?”

She delighted in the flustered, golden blush that coloured his cheeks. “W-What? No, of course not! I was just trying to clean you up and protect you is all.”

“Protect?”

N paused, deep in thought for a moment, and she felt his other hand once again smooth over the scar between her shoulders. “You remember way back, when I told you about how our saliva neutralises the acid from our tails? Well, it’s also a really good rust repellent. Good for injuries that take longer to heal. Funnily enough, it was also useful back when we-” N stopped suddenly and Uzi felt him physically recoil. She shifted to throw a worried glance at him over her shoulder, and found him staring distantly at the small of her back, his mind far off.

“It was… y-y’know,” he said his voice small and pained now. “Good for uh… for keeping…”

“…Your kills from going bad?” Uzi finished tentatively. N nodded silently, his face miserable and guilty. “That makes sense. I know you guys stashed a lot of dead bodies to eat later. Probably would have been bad for you if one went rusty and that found its way into your oil stream.”

N made a quiet noise of affirmation, but it was only then that the realisation hit Uzi. Disassemblers were notoriously quick healers; surely a little rust wouldn’t harm them – at least not in the same way it did for Workers. But if they had been programmed – or… mutated with such a specific feat…

“Can you…?”

“Rust? Yeah. It’s… it’s one of the few things our bodies really struggle to regenerate from. I heard stories of other Disassembly Drones on the planet picking through old corpses and succumbing to it. It’s scary stuff. Really nasty way to go.”

Uzi nodded slowly in understanding. The exposed metal of drones was galvanized; carefully coated to prevent rust, but wear and tear made them susceptible, and for reasons unknown, the oxidisation seemed to take a hold on drones faster than it did on dead metal. Much of their internals too were spared a safety coating, and so it spread like wildfire when it worked its way beneath the surface. She’d known Workers in the bunker who had gotten careless – not gotten deep wounds cleaned sooner… and N was right. It was a horribly painful way to go. Especially when it got into their metallic arteries and their oil carried it briskly throughout their bodies, eating them away from the inside out. Caught quickly enough it was easy to treat. Caught too late and…

Uzi shuddered, and N pressed his forehead gently between her shoulder blades.

“I just want to keep you safe and healthy,” he said softly, his breath tickling her back as one hand slipped under her arm to cradle her chest. “The area around your wings and back is just… it’s thin, and damaged. And… it seems like a risk. But I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”

Uzi felt herself relax a little, and she held his hand a little more firmly over her core. She stretched one wing out slowly and tentatively; an open invitation for him to continue.

“Do what you gotta do,” she said gently. “Just… try not to slobber too much, alright?”

She could hear N laugh sweetly, and he shifted to press a tender kiss to her cheek. “Alright.”

***

It was quite possibly one of the weirdest sensations Uzi had experienced, and she had experienced many weird sensations in the past few months of her life. Still, N was tender with her, and each lap against her old injuries was careful yet purposeful as he coated the damaged plastic in the… somewhat unconventional, protective barrier. On occasion, Uzi would tense as her CPU fought the urge to overthink everything that was happening, and each time, N would pause, focusing instead on rubbing soothing patterns against her muscles until she found her mind clearing and her body relaxing once more.

Uzi lost count of how many times N asked if she was okay, if this was alright, how many times he reassured her gently that if she was uncomfortable he would stop. But over time, she felt him too relax, his mind and lips quiet now as he settled into a slow, comfortable rhythm – something that felt natural for a drone that so desperately wanted to care for others. He had, after all, always been intended to be a part of a pack; it was probably an urge deep in his programming.

As he nibbled at the sharp edges poking into the membrane of her wing, Uzi felt as the plastic was snipped away by razor sharp fangs that cut through the material as though it were nothing more than scissors through paper. She hadn’t even noticed how uncomfortable the skin had been until he freed her of the jabbing shards, and she let her wing stretch out gratefully.

“I wonder if the technicians here would know how to fit you with some wing ports,” he said quietly, wiping his hand over his mouth. “It’d probably hurt you a whole lot less. And protect you from any nasty infections; both rust and organic.”

She hadn’t thought about it before, but N was right. From a practical standpoint, it made far more sense than allowing her casing to rip open painfully each time, and risking the potential of long term damage. She’d gotten so used to the pain now that she’d forgot that it wasn’t a burden she was just expected to carry forever.

…Story of her life.

“I doubt anyone here would have any clue what to do without reference. But I guess I could mock up some blueprints and see what they could do,” a coy grin curled Uzi’s lips. “I wonder if I could get a cool paint job on them. Like flames. Man, that’d be so frickin’ cool.”

N chuckled, nuzzling her cheek. “The coolest.”

“And if I get grit in my wing ports, you’ll help me out, right?”

“Always.” There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation to the word, but she did detect a wavering sorrow lying underneath his steadfast tone. He rose slightly so that his head was level with hers. “I’ll never leave you to suffer alone. I promise.”

Twisting her head, she let her visor align with N’s own, the dull clink of glass on glass as she closed her eyes. “I know you wont,” she said softly. “Yeah… you’d never. ‘Cause you’re like, the sweetest person in the universe.”

She felt him smile, felt the usual warmth that radiated off him return like a blissful sunrise, and the tails that clung to each other wagged in a slow, languid unison.

When it seemed that N was content with the state of Uzi’s back, he turned his attention fully to each of her wings, using the nubby ends of his claws to get deep into the knots and rooting out the lingering tautness in her until each limb was barely upright. He slid finger pads up and down the patchy skin, let them glide over and around the torn, leathery membranes between bony fingers, until they settled over the wrists of the strange, mutant digits that twitched stiffly in anticipation.

With the hands of a seasoned expert, N applied the exact pressure needed to elicit an involuntary, yet delighted trill from Uzi as the muscles all through out her wings contracted and loosened and grew malleable at his touch. She was warm putty in his hands… and oh Robo-God, how she desperately wanted this to last forever.

“You’re good at this,” Uzi mumbled through her daze. “Are you sure you weren’t a masseur in a previous life?”

A sweet laugh escaped N’s lips. “I mean, I guess… kinda. In a way. I used to – well, I mean, we all used to help look after Tessa. Her wrists always hurt a lot from whenever her parents locked her away. So we learned how to help… at least as best we could, y’know?”

He paused for a moment, his thumb lingering over the pulse point where both blood and oil both streamed through organic veins and arteries, then it drifted over her own as drone fingers slipped between otherworldly ones. Then he lead it closer and he planted a small, lingering kiss first to the base of her palm, and then again to her wrist.

Uzi blushed, the fingers wriggling and twitching giddily. “I’m gonna take a wild guess that you didn’t do that for Tessa.”

“Heh, nah,” one arm curled back around her waist loosely as he shifted to lean a little more of his weight on her. “Only you.”

No one had ever been this tender with her before. She had once thought it was impossible for anyone to love her enough to want to be this intimate with her. For all her life, she had never even dared to imagine that she would mean anything to anyone… and yet N loved her like she put the stars in his sky and the pulse in every beat of his heart.

She felt his arm tug her closer, his knees drawing up slightly around her legs, and the small of her back was pressed flush against his belly, the slight dome of his chest fitting perfectly in the recess between her shoulder blades. His hand rose from her ribs to her chest, and fingertips traced the rim where glass met casing before his palm came to rest directly over her heart, smoothing little circles as he nestled his head atop hers.

The casing-to-casing contact felt so delightful. Uzi thought she would find it more awkward, or uncomfortable; after all, her tactile sensors were so hypersensitive from a lifetime of being so starved of physical touch that even the chill of the air felt sharp and painful on her torso, but enveloped in N’s warmth, she felt nothing but sweet comfort. He was her greatest source of safety, and this close with nothing between them… it just felt weirdly right.

She could feel his heart thump softly, soothingly against her back and she could have sworn that hers began to sync up, beating in time like refined clockwork; two mechanisms perfectly designed to exist in harmony. Uzi wanted nothing more in the world than to be right here, right now, and she wriggled, trying to press herself even more against him, cherishing his delighted purr which rumbled like a deep thunder that rattled her whole body.

He was clearly just as lost in this moment as she was, as the hand still holding her wing had seized moving as though he had forgotten all about it.

“You bored of my wings already, huh?” Uzi teased lightly. It was strange - it felt like an effort to speak now… she hadn’t realised how drowsy she had become.

He shook his head and nuzzled his nose bump into her hair. “I’m never bored of anything to do with you,” he said fondly, and she felt his fingers finally move again, unwinding from between the bony claws and glancing over the fleshy webbing where it met the thinner membrane. “Everything about you is wonderful.”

Uzi’s sly smile relaxed again with affection. Robo-God… he was so sappy, it was utterly endearing. When N began to nibble and preen the hair near the band of her beanie, she removed it, (something she usually hated to do, but she was willing to make an exception for in this case) and N chirped cheerfully as he was granted easier access. She’d found it weird the first time he’d done this – until she realised that it was simply an unconscious, affectionate, and honestly rather cute behaviour of Disassembly Drones. Just another strange mutation in their code that had lead to an unforeseen inheritance of more animalistic traits.

Lizzy had told Uzi once in passing that V did the same to her, and that she’d figured it was some sort of ‘pack bonding’ thing. It made sense, Uzi thought. N’s squad had been… dysfunctional, yes, but she could definitely imagine Disassemblers engaging in this sort of thing with each other. N and V’s ‘pack’ had simply acquired a couple of… well, slightly unexpected members recently.

It didn’t seem to bother either of them in the slightest.

“You having fun?” Uzi chuckled.

“Mhm…” he drawled dreamily as he combed a strand of her hair through his fangs. He sounded so distant, almost trance-like, and she tilted her head back to catch his eye, as though it might break the spell. N paused, disturbed from his work, and then gazed back down at her lovingly, his big, doe-eyes flickering and sparkling like dazzling citrines. A touch of purple and orange shone back at her, her own eyes reflecting in his visor, softer than she thought was possible for her usual, scowling, edgy demeanour. He’d changed her; brought out a vulnerable side of her she’d tried to bury for years.

She reached up with both hands and cradled his face and he melted at her touch, she felt his body grow heavier against hers as his head drooped, eyes closed, relishing in the emotional security of her palms. She brought him closer still, stretching up just a touch until she found the contact she desired.

She still wasn’t used to kissing N. She wasn’t sure she would ever get used to it – or at least, perhaps she’d never take it for granted. The warmth, the softness, the little buzz of energy thrumming on her lips… N purred so sweetly, she could feel his smile widen in delight as he let his lips caress every inch of her own, from corner to corner. When she broke the kiss with a laugh, he trilled, still dipping down to try and peck her lips playfully now, anyway he could.

A little overwhelmed by the affection, Uzi squirmed and twisted her head, and N relaxed slightly, instead opting to plant a lingering kiss against her cheek. He sighed wistfully there, his warm breath leaving a small mist of condensation on her casing.

“Love you,” he mumbled, turning to let his own cheek and temple rub against the side of her visor, not unlike an affectionate cat. 

“I love you too, you big softie,” Uzi mumbled, running her fingers back up and into his soft hair with one hand, the other trailing to rest over the one still cradling her heart. She wondered silently if he could hear the words of her core just from the touch of his fingertips – though she didn’t need to think long on what they would have been. They would have certainly mirrored those she had heard from his own earlier.

HAPPY. LOVE. SAFE.

***

“Dude, people are going to think we’re at the epicentre of an earthquake at this rate.”

The thunderous rumbles of N’s chassis hadn’t ceased since the moment he had returned to massaging Uzi’s opposite wing, and he only purred louder, almost as though rebelling against the statement, as she felt him grin against the casing of her neck. “Can’t help it. Too happy.”

“I’ve noticed,” Uzi said with a fond eyeroll. “About half the colony has probably noticed by now.” When N giggled, Uzi’s smile softened, and she nuzzled against his hair. “Alright, fine. I’m glad you’re happy. I really missed seeing you happy.”

Their tails both swayed together, and for a while Uzi wasn’t sure at whose whim they moved. She could feel her own chest beginning to vibrate again lightly as N’s head shifted slightly to stare back at her lovingly.

“I’m glad I’m happy again too.”

He kissed her cheek briskly before sitting up a little straighter again, a relief as Uzi had found her own spine curling like a shrimp under his weight. Even still, she could feel N’s chest nuzzle against her back as though he wanted to indulge in the continuing, happy rumbles of her chassis, and Uzi purred louder for him, feeling him smile as he gave her a joyful squeeze. He wiggled her back and forth lightly in his arm, as his other hand indulged her wing in his sweet touch.

“Wow… I must be the luckiest drone in the universe.” His voice dripped with love as he traced a little heart shape around the icon on her chest.

The pacing of his purrs changed, and Uzi wasn’t sure if he was doing it on purpose, but it seemed as though he was timing his to fall perfectly between her own. They made a chorus, a melody… Uzi closed her eyes and focused on the sound and the feeling as it grounded her to this moment in time. She could feel his heartbeat too, keeping the rhythm like a steady metronome against her back, and oh, Robo-God, it would have been so easy to fall asleep like this.

Slowly, Uzi let her leg swing around so that she now sat side-saddle on his lap, and N allowed her the wiggle room to get comfortable again as she wrapped one wing around his back like a leathery blanket, while he fidgeted with the fingers on her other. A hand that still so often didn’t feel like her own brushed against the silky, silver locks of N’s hair, and she let the digits pause to appreciate them, running them sleepily over the back of his head. It felt so much softer with these hands; softer than she thought was physically possible.

“Your hair’s nice,” she mumbled, feeling her limbs growing heavier. She rested her cheek against the synthetic, collarbone-shaped divot above his glass panel as she let her wing’s hand fall back down to cling to the back of his shoulder, fingers feeling tingling and tickly as though still enveloped in phantom fluffy tufts.

“Thank you. I have an absolutely stellar hairdresser,” he winked at her and she snorted as he tossed his fringe about with a drawn-out, dramatic flair.

“Dork.” Uzi closed one eye against his casing, and reached up to twirl the curled tip of one of his bangs around her robotic finger.

Still cradling her in one arm, N let his hand drift down her wing to rest against her shoulder blade, running his fingers back and forth over the thin, wispy mane of her upper back, and Uzi delighted in the feeling of it greatly, wriggling to try and press more of her side against his belly.

A curious and expectant gaze met hers when she moved her hand down his cheek to brush her thumb lightly over his lips, and she felt his own mane bristle, fluffing up excitedly against her wing as his coiled tail gave hers a little squeeze in response. Uzi lifted N’s upper lip towards the corner to reveal some of his fangs, and taking advantage of N’s slight overbite, she leaned close and pressed her lips to their tips.

N trilled and giggled and wiggled, and Uzi felt his arms grow snug around her as their chests were pressed together once again. Her HUD updated in an instant and the pings reappeared;

KISS! SOFT! SOFT!

Uzi’s mouth curled at the corners, trying not to laugh at his core’s gleeful outburst, and she readjusted to better meet his lips now, N melting into the kiss with a deeply content sigh. His fingers curled over the back of her head and played with her hair, as soft, nubby claws rubbed soothingly against her scalp, and Uzi found she was able to hold the contact for so much longer this time.

He made it feel so easy. It was so easy to love him, and he made her feel like maybe she was easy to love too. When she broke the kiss to take a breath and put to rest the butterflies in her chest, N hummed sweetly in a daze against the corner of her mouth. She was more than happy to allow the lingering contact, and delighted in feelings his fingertips tracing delicately against her upper back.

This room, this moment as it existed right now within N’s embrace, was Robo-Paradise… Uzi was certain of it.

“Uzi?” N asked quietly after a few blissful minutes of quiet. She could detect a hint of apprehension in his tone, like he was afraid to ask his question, and he pulled back just enough to meet her eye. “Did you mean what you said before? When you called me beautiful?”

Stunned, Uzi sat upright a little more, sucker-punching her fatigue and winning the fight against it in an instant. “What? Yeah, of course I meant it! You think I’d lie to you? I’m wounded, truly!” She rose an arm to her forehead, swooning dramatically, and N laughed, readjusting his arm to support her.

“I just wanted to check,” he said with a smile. “I wasn’t sure if you just said it to make me feel better.”

Uzi huffed softly, shifting again so that her legs were either side of his hips, and she retracted her wings back within her torso. He lifted his knees more, slipping them up behind her to comfortably support her back. “I wouldn’t lie to you about that, I promise. You’re like… y’know… ugh,” she grabbed his face and stared into his eyes seriously, which was hard to do when N was clearly trying to hold back a giddy little giggle. She gave his head a mild shake. “Serial Designation N, you are the prettiest frickin’ drone in the entire known universe, okay?”

“Second prettiest,” he corrected, a slight slyness to his voice.

“Huh?”

N leaned forward and tapped a finger tip against her chest, and as the realisation hit her, Uzi’s eyes widened and she puffed her blushing cheeks out.

“Wh- Dude, shut up!” She burst out with a chuckle and N beamed at her. “You’re so corny!”

“I won’t,” he chimed. “You just have to take the compliment!”

“Nuh, uh! And besides, you gotta take my compliment from before first!” Uzi tried to pout, but her lips refused to cooperate, peeling back in a toothy grin.

“Fine, but my compliment is past its warranty now, so there!”

“Past warran- what are you talking about-?”

“It can’t be returned! You’re stuck with it! Hah!” N suddenly collapsed backwards, dragging Uzi down with him, and he spun onto his side with joyous laughter as he pulled her close to him once more. Uzi growled playfully as she tried to push back on his chest and regain some distance but he was far stronger, squeezing his arms around her midriff. He clacked his fangs playfully against her cheek and twisted to roll over again, tugging Uzi over the top of him to rest beside him once more.

When the mirth had settled, the room found its residents quiet and peaceful in a tangle of limbs and tails, warm breath mingling in the space between silent lips.

“You warm enough?” Uzi asked softly after a while. N almost seemed to prickle in surprise at the sound of her voice – she could feel the fur on his spine twitch under her fingers. “We can like, get under the covers if you want.”

N’s eyes twinkled and lit up. “I think that’d be nice,” he mumbled gratefully.

When N let his arms loosen around her, Uzi rose to crawl towards the edge of the bed, ripping free the blankets from where they snagged on the metal frames and other miscellaneous debris, and pulled it back far across the width of the bed. N wiggled out of the way, before clambering over and under the thin duvet, burrowing beneath so that his backside stuck up in the air comically, tail hanging over him.

Laughing, Uzi grabbed his hips and swayed them from side to side playfully. “Dude, your head is supposed to be out here, not your-”

A muffled voice quickly protested; “Hey! I’m working on it!” And then he dived under further, thumping his head against her wall. “Ow.”

Eventually, N curled back around and out popped a familiar cheerful face as he squirmed up to rest his head against her pillow. He chirped sweetly as he rolled onto his back and Uzi rubbed the top of his head affectionately where it had collided with the plaster mere moments ago.

“Alright,” she nodded. “Arms up.”

N lifted his arms skyward as though he were a horizontal zombie, and Uzi draped and folded the covers over the top of him up to his chest, then, with a mischievous grin, clambered all over N’s body as she tucked the blankets around him like a cocoon. N hummed as she did so, arms still aloft as he slowly wiggled his fingers (she could hear them clicking and creaking above her) and then Uzi heard the distinct click of his hands retracting and changing form.

She paused long enough to feel his claws  - his long, sabre-like claws – make contact with the back of her head, running through her hair slowly like a macabre hairbrush. She didn’t flinch as he brought the blades close to her face, and ever so carefully slipped them between the strands draping down beside her visor.

“Hey, look… I can comb your hair too, see…?” He purred. Then his hand twitched guiltily as she watched his eyes flicker with worry. “Oh, wait, right. No claws on the bed.”

“Hm…” Uzi smiled, taking his palm gently and guiding it back close to her cheek. “I think I can make an exception, just this once.”

Laying atop him for an idyllic moment, Uzi crossed her arms over his chest and rested her chin on them as she indulged in a little more of N’s pampering. One huge, clawed hand rested on her lower back, the thin edges resting so carefully against her silicone, while the other skimmed though her fringe. Never once did they scratch her, not even accidentally, and when he finally seemed content, she watched and felt as they both switched out back to his normal hands and perched upon each side of her face.

“Did you not want blanket time too?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Uzi rolled off of him and undid the tucking on one side of his body to squirm underneath, and then N turned onto his side to face her, effectively making her earlier efforts more or less redundant. She felt his hand reach for her own, and he lifted it to hold her palm against his cheek, his gaze not leaving hers. She knew him. She knew immediately what he was after.

“You want scritches?” She asked. N’s sweet, pleading, puppy-dog eyes affirmed his silent request. Of course, Uzi was more than happy to comply. She found his sweet spot – just behind his headband and lower down towards the side of his head - and as she rubbed little circles against his scalp, N trilled in delight, tilting his head as though desperately reaching out for more of her heavenly touch.

“Aw, heh. That hit the spot, huh?” Uzi beamed. “You’re so adorable… who’s my precious, badass, eldritch demon…?”

Each purr that rumbled in his throat developed a higher pitched flick to the end of it, caught somewhere between a hum and a chirp; it was a melodic and sweet sound, Uzi thought, like his voice was dipped in honey. One of his eyes was closed from the pressure of the pillow beneath his cheek, but the other gazed at her so lovingly, like she might have been his entire world and reason for living. Uzi leaned forward and kissed him on his visor.

He really was beautiful. She silently thanked whatever force of the universe decided she was worthy of a moment like this.

“Just let me know when you want me to head off,” N mumbled softly after a few minutes of bliss.

Uzi had thought she had lulled him into slumber by now – and so his words threw her for a loop. She scoffed lightly, humoured by the irony of him saying such a thing on the cusp of slipping into sleep-mode.

“N, I just tucked you into bed,” she said, raising a playful eyebrow at him.

“Mhm…” he replied dreamily, as though only half processing her words. Then after a few seconds, his eyes widened as he seemed to recollect himself. “O-Oh! You want me to stay?”

“I mean- I thought it was implied I-” Uzi suddenly felt slightly sheepish, her arm loosening around him, and her hand faltering near his cheek.  “You like, don’t have to stay if you don’t want, its whatever. Sorry, I just-”

N scooped her closer again, and to Uzi’s surprise, he ducked his head down under her chin, resting his auditory sensor against her chest. She became acutely aware of her heartbeat – the minute pressure of it withing her ribs, and how he shifted to perfectly align his head to best hear and feel the sensation. He was listening to it as though it were a comforting melody, and Uzi felt his fingers once again trace up and down her spine as he rubbed his cheek against her glass panel.

“I’d like to stay,” he said quietly, the warmth of his breath caressing her casing. “If that’s okay.”

Uzi’s arms curled more securely around him as she rested her chin carefully between two of the bulbs on his headband. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I really like, y’know… when you’re here. With me. Like… this.”

She could feel it, the smile that worked onto his lips as the bulbs on his headband dimmed and switched off one by one. He must have fallen asleep quickly after that, his breathing evening out as she felt the slow rise and fall of his back under her fingers. Finally, Uzi thought. He could sleep comfortably now – and catch up on the rest and recharge that he so desperately needed.

Pressing her lips against one of the bulbs seemed to trigger something; N shifted sluggishly and dragged the side of his face against her casing as he pulled himself up clumsily to nuzzle into the side of her neck. She held him there securely, feeling him melt again as she mirrored his affections; a chaste kiss to his own neck before finding the sanctuary she needed to begin to drift off herself.

It startled her when her core pinged again. It felt so natural now, the way their bodies touched, that she hadn’t noticed their hearts had aligned again in the shuffle. Even more surprising was the sensation of tears prickling at the corners of her eyes as she processed the sincerity of the message; how his very heart truly felt.

SAFE TO REST. LOVE IS HERE.

Uzi squeezed him tight as the violet tears blipped and ran down her visor, and she rubbed them away, glad he couldn’t see them, letting her have a moment of privacy to feel her feelings. Love is here. Love is here. The words rolled around in her mind over and over as the reality dawned on her, because it was true, there was nothing but love here. She could feel her heart frolicking with giddy glee even now, even after months of being together, the notion of being loved still had a profound effect on her.

This love, these feelings… they were timeless. Eternal. She had never been more sure of anything in her life.

Something glinted in the low light out of the corner of Uzi’s optics as they began to close, half hidden amongst the crumpled creases of the blankets near N’s legs, and Uzi blearily and uselessly pawed at the air, trying to beckon it closer. When that inevitably failed, the amber-tipped circlet of her solver buzzed into existence around its form, and yanked it free and into Uzi’s clutch.

It was the marble. It must have rolled out of her pocket when she had tossed her hoodie beside N’s jacket, and like a raft on the stormy waves of her duvet, it had sailed closer to them, now stranded on still tides. Uzi brought it to a rest between her fingers and thumb, wiping the flecks and remnants of oil and dust on her sheets.

The way that it shimmered and shined so boldly… Uzi realised now what N had seen in it when he had first declared his appreciation for the tiny thing. There was beauty in the simplicity of its design, and as for its function… how many human children had it brought joy to in its lifetime? There was surely something admirable about that too.

She set the marble down carefully amongst the mess of her bedside table, and with one last lingering look at it, returned to enveloping N in her embrace, tangling herself amongst his limbs and the invisible bonds that tied them together.

Purple and yellow intertwined on tableside and bedsheets… it was as if they were always meant to be.