Heated Murderbot Diaries - A murderbot x heated rivalry fanfiction.
Chapter 1 - Box Breathing
I hate my life sometimes. When Pin-lee had asked me to contract with Montreal Metros as their team’s security consultant three years ago, I had no idea that I would be baby-sitting her nephew through a situationship induced panic attack. (I was 99% sure that “situationship” was the right word to use in this context.)
I had first noticed Shane Hollander exhibiting the tell-tale signs of a human experiencing high levels of stress and distress during the 189th Galactic Olympics. He had not slept now for an entirety of one-and-a-half-day-cycle despite having participated in rigorous hockey matches for the Olympics.
Hockey itself was one of the many unnecessarily dangerous things humans liked to engage in for the sake of entertainment, but I could acknowledge that Hollander was very good at it. It gave me a mini heart-attack every time the team stepped on the ice but who gives a fuck about what Murderbot thinks.
Anyway, the Preservation team (which was different from the Montreal Metros for a reason I didn’t care about) had won the Olympics and this should have been a cause of celebration, particularly for Hollander who was obsessed with Hockey. More obsessed than I was with Sanctuary Moon which is A LOT. This moping around was not making any sense.
I watched him sit in the corner in one of the local bars the team was visiting for a post win celebration, holding a can of ginger ale but not really drinking it. The rest of the team was dancing on the make-shift dance floor. I was keeping an eye on them via the cameras that I had hacked as soon as we entered the bar. I didn’t have my drones on me because they were not allowed in the Olympic Village or anywhere else in the city.
Against my better judgement, I asked Hollander, “Is...everything alright with you?”
He jolted out of his reverie and looked at me. “SecUnit. Yes, all good. Just a little tired.” He gave me a small smile. “Thank you for asking.”
I liked Hollander. He was a good captain. He was quiet. He was nice to me. And most importantly, he always listened to me when I was trying to save everybody’s lives. He even helped keep some of the other, stupider humans in the team in check in life-threatening situations, which was always helpful. I didn’t even hate having to look at him directly, which I was stuck doing because no drones. But it still did not make sense to me why I then proceeded to continue this conversation.
“Are you sure? You seem sad,” I said. I know. Providing emotional support wasn’t really a part of my job description but it was hard to watch any human be sad. Particularly a human I actually liked. ART was rubbing off on me.
Hollander blinked. “I thought you were not interested in what humans felt,” he said. I think I had said that to him explicitly at some point in our acquaintanceship.
“I am not,” I said. I am really not. “But you guys won. I thought you would be satisfied with that outcome.”
“I am satisfied,” he said. He glanced at the bar entrance once and looked down quickly. I checked the camera feed and saw a few members of the Froasca Planet Alliance (FPA for short) team enter. They were supposed to be a good team but they had flunked out pretty early in the Olympics because they had an injured goalie.
I didn’t see Ilya Rozanov in the mix which was good news for me. He was Captain of the FPA team and of the Boston Raiders in the Galactic Hockey League. The Metros vs Raiders rivalry was big on the news feed. The Rozanov and Hollander rivalry was even bigger. What nobody knew though was that Hollander and Rozanov had engaged in sexual relations multiple times and I unfortunately had to keep an eye on them because no way in hell am I allowing my client to be compromised by a corporate-bonded human. Both my risk and threat assessment modules were positive for Rozanov, but you know me, I am paranoid, same old, same old.
It was a deeply disturbing experience all three times and I was not looking for a repeat. But then it clicked.
I quickly checked the footage from a few hours ago. Hollander had a private conversation (mostly private) with Rozanov during the Ice-Skating finales. (Ice-skating was also stupidly dangerous but at least it was beautiful to look at. Also, I had recently watched All-Star Edge Chronicles which was about an injured skater’s return to the ice. The story was mediocre, but I had really liked the visuals of the sport itself.) They had had an argument which was unusual. Rozanov was an asshole, but he was always nice to Hollander in his own weird way.
This must be why Hollander was so miserable. I was very confused. Hollander constantly mentioned that he hates Rozanov around his family and teammates. Ugh, I wish I could ask Rathi for advice. He was an expert on all things sex.
Realizing I couldn’t help I left Hollander alone for the rest of the night. We spent one more day on the planet and I managed to safely deliver the team back to Preservation in one night. What was I talking about? Ah yes, the panic attack.
After the Olympics, I spent the next 72 day-cycles accompanying the Metros whenever they needed to travel for what was called an “away-game.” If I wasn’t available, Three would go in my place who was getting better and better at security. During this time, Hollander’s mood got significantly better. It would have been 86-day cycles if the Metros hadn’t lost the semi-finals to the Raiders.
While I had absolutely no interest in outcome of the game it had annoyed me to see Rozanov win. Rozanov was an excellent player but my human was better.
I was with ART on a survey mission for his crew when we received the news that the Raiders had won the 139th GHL.
“What is your problem with this human?” ART had asked when I had muttered something about Rozanov being an asshole.
One thing led to another and I ended up showing ART the footage of Rozanov and Hollander arguing in the Olympics.
“Intriguing,” ART said. “It looks like your human harbours romantic feelings for this human.”
“What? No, he doesn’t. They just have sex sometimes. It’s a rivalry thing. He hates him.”
“He pretends to hate him. Humans are bad at dealing with emotions. There is a high probability that Hollander is in love with this human and hasn’t accepted his feelings for him. He is very similar to you in that regard.”
I was still horrified. But 30 cycles later I was reminded of ART’s statement as I held Hollander while he dry-heaved in a bathroom stall.
We were on a planet near Port Free Commerce in the Corporation Rim for a Sports Award Show and Hollander was due to be on stage in fifteen minutes to present an award with Rozanov. Probably what had triggered his sympathetic nervous system. Organic neural cells were weird. I would know.
I had assessed his vitals and concluded he did not need medical assistance which was a good thing and a bad thing. Good because he was okay. And bad because I was now having to touch another person. I set him down on the floor and crouched into his line of sight so that I was visible and nonthreatening.
“I need you to breathe with me. In for four seconds.” I set a timer on Hollander’s feed where he could see it. “Hold it for four. Out for four.” Box breathing. I had seen it on Medcentre Argala because my own company provided module for this was useless. The show was also very inaccurate, but this technique had helped me when I had had a panic attack once. No, I don’t want to talk about it.
I kept my voice low and even, matched my own respiratory cycle to the timer so Hollander would have an auditory anchor and resisted the urge to queue up a serial in the background.
“Name five things you can see.” Grounding technique, also from Medcentre Argala. The show really got criticised for no reason. Look how much it was helping. Hollander’s heart rate dropped to an acceptable rate by the time he named three things. Good enough for me. We stayed there for another minute, and Hollander got up on his feet on his own. I stood up as well.
Hollander just nodded and we stepped out of the bathroom.
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