You’re Warm (Refarious Ficlet)
They were terribly lost on this backwater part of the planet.
Terrawat Forest was gigantic, needlessly so. Rounding up the little animals running about should’ve been a piece of cake, but then again, with the four of them trying to work together nothing was a piece of cake. Ratchet and Nefarious had gotten separated from Qwark and Clank. The group had decided that pairing a “squishy” with a robot would make everything go faster; of course Nefarious didn’t want to work with Qwark so he was stuck with the galaxy’s saviour
They had wandered around the forest for an hour non-stop. Nefarious was surprised Ratchet could keep up. The duo kept ducking behind trees whenever they came across Nevo’s robots. Taking on a whole squadron with just the two of them would be impossible. Nefarious found Ratchet had taken to pushing himself up against the robot whenever they hid from the enemy. At first, it was annoying and he was going to (loudly) let the Lombax know as such, but remembering that certain death was right around the corner, he kept his mouth shut. Now, he made sure to pull Ratchet against him whenever they had to hide.
Oddly enough, it just felt natural to him.
-
“Is your communicator working yet?”
“No, we’re still out of range. How does anything get DONE in this stupid forest?!”
They were still lost. And well out of range of any signal in order to message their other companions. Ratchet spotted a cave and all but forced Nefarious inside it when it started to rain. Night had fallen and the cold was starting to set in. Nefarious was indifferent to the drastic change in temperature, but Ratchet could feel the biting cold all the way to his bones. He had tried for hours to hide it from Nefarious, not in the mood for a “this is why robots are superior to squishes” rant.
“Are you seriously cold? Ha! How pathetic!”
Obviously he didn’t hide it well enough.
“Yes! It’s cold as balls out here Nefarious, how can you not feel it?! I bet Poiktaru can even feel it, its so fucking cold!” Ratchet barked. He had finally given up and curled up into the tightest ball he could to retain whatever warmth he had left. Nefarious continued to laugh at the pathetic sight before him until the Lombax threatened to shoot him out of the cave with the Vac-U.
“If you MUST know, we OBVIOUSLY SUPERIOR ROBOTS have built in temperature control. How else would I have survived in the deep freezing cold vacuum of space without freezing, DUH!” Nefarious knocked on his chest plate, shooting Ratchet a smug look. “I’m just oozing all that beautiful warmth you so obviously need to survive. What a shame you won’t get the chance to make it off this miserable planet, what with being a giant fucking icicle and everything.”
“What the hell Nefarious?! Why are you holding out on me?!”
“Because I don’t like you?”
Ratchet could do nothing more than glare at the robot. It was too cold, and he was using too much energy arguing his partner. He was tired.
Nefarious gave a nasty sneer in Ratchet’s general direction when he didn’t hear a comeback from him. He was gearing up with more insults to throw at his partner when he noticed the Lombax wasn’t moving at all, he didn’t even look like he was breathing. Nefarious frowned. He could let Ratchet sit there and freeze to death, call the whole thing an accident and there wasn’t anything he could do because the good doctor was out trying to contact the rest of his team. But then Clank would hate him, or be disappointed in him. And having Secret Agent Clank hate him didn’t sit right with Nefarious. He could live with Qwark hating him.
“Hey...”
“...”
“WAKE UP YOU MISERABLE RODENT!”
Said rodent woke up with a gasp, startled into falling off the boulder he was sitting on.
“Wha-what happened?!” Ratchet screamed. Nefarious glared at him and beckoned him over. Ratchet gave the doctor a confused look. “Me?”
“Yes you, you idiot. Do you see anyone else in here? Get over here before you freeze to death.” Nefarious snapped.
Ratchet smiled. He hurried over to the robot and sat next to him. His smile turned into a frown when he noticed he couldn’t feel any of the heat that was supposedly rolling off Nefarious in waved. Ratchet craned his neck up to ask the other if he was lying about being a “superior robot” when he felt Nefarious’ claws suddenly bite into his arms.
“Nefarious, what the hell?!”
“You’re sitting in the wrong spot. Moron.”
“Wha-”
Nefarious easily lifted Ratchet from his spot and deposited him in his metallic lap. The change in the Lombax’s demeanor was almost instantaneous. He pushed himself into Nefarious’ chest and seemingly forgot that the robot’s claws were still biting into his arms. It was just so warm. A content smile spread across Ratchet’s face and he started to drift off to sleep.
“Thanks Nefarious...I needed that...” Ratchet mumbled.
The robot huffed and didn’t bother responding. He glared out of the cave, the tall mushrooms they had passed earlier were glowing, casting an eerie blue shadow into their shelter. He hated this planet. Nefarious turned his attention back to the furry bundle in his lap. Ratchet’s head had fallen into the little crevice between his shoulder and his torso. That couldn’t have been comfortable.
“I swear if you tell anyone about this I’ll kill you.”
Nefarious put Ratchet’s head back on his chest and wrapped his arms around the Lombax to make sure the other didn’t move anywhere. He placed his head on top of Ratchet’s and sighed.
“Look’s like I’m not powering down tonight...”
He hated how natural this felt. He hated how good it felt. He hated this miserable planet and everything on it. But the Lombax’s annoying presence made things somewhat tolerable.
Ratchet always made things tolerable.