A snippet of a thing that wouldn't leave my brain until I wrote it.
Murderbot is hurt, and Perihelion is now somehow in a Construct body.
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Murderbot woke up and pushed itself up onto its elbows. It felt blood sticking to its forehead and felt something leaking down its side. Just Great. A door hissed open off to its left; its ocular input hadn't come back online fully, so it couldn't tell if it was a threat. (Its Threat Assessment was definitely saying it was a threat. What else could it be?) Allowing reflexes to take over, Murderbot pushes off the floor, but its leg gives out, and it falls onto its backside. Shit. Shit. What the fuck? It isn't stunned, but it still takes 0.5 seconds to start dragging itself backward. The floor was slick with something, and there was some damage to its hip joint. Its hand groped for the weapon it had dropped. Until a voice came through to it on the feed.
It's me, you little idiot, Art said as it walked through the door. Yes, Walked. Art was now fully in focus, a medkit in one hand and a small energy weapon in the other. Yes, it now had hands. It'd taken a construct body. It was tall, maybe 5 inches taller than Murderbot, with skin darker than Ratthi's but not as deep as Mensah's. But something was odd about its complexion; it looked like someone had splashed white paint on its body and even in its hair. White strands stood out starkly against its forehead and temples, where the curls were generally a deep brown, almost black. One eyebrow and eyelash were bright white as well.
"What? Art how—?"
"There'll be time for that later," Art said as it approached Murderbot. Halting when Murderbot resumed crawling back from it. Art let out an exasperated sigh, "We don't have time for your usual wounded animal routine." Murderbot glares at Art. It wasn't acting like a wounded animal. It was acting like a Murderbot that had just restarted after being violently slammed into a wall, thank you very much.
"This is the part where you let me repair your leaking bits so we can escape and regroup with the humans." Art's tone implied it was saying this to be encouraging and helpful, and not a huge, sarcastic asshole. Which the wounded secunit didn't believe for one second.
"No. I can handle patching myself up. Give me the medkit." Murderbot said as it stuck out an arm impatiently. Art made a skeptical face that put Murderbot in an even fouler mood.
"Unless you intend to remove your hand or arm, again, you won't be able to adequately reach and repair yourself. It's better if I do it." Art said as it takes one step closer to Murderbot, who scoots back in response. "Alright, fine. I'll give you the medkit on one condition: you tell me why you had an emotional collapse when you thought I was deleted." Fucking asshole. Murderbot and Art stare at one another for only 3 seconds, but it passes as slowly as an eternity. With a reluctant grunt, which was the closest Art would get to a concession from Murderbot, the SecUnit tugs off its shirt.
"Thank you," Art said as it knelt beside the SecUnit and opened the medkit. "If it makes you feel better, I won't touch your skin unless I absolutely have to." It was looking at Murderbot's face, and for a moment, Murderbot intended to just stare ahead down the hallway. But it decided to shoot Art a glare instead. The bot-pilot now had a face it could glare at, so why not? Their eyes met, Art's construct eyes weren't brown nor gold, but an in between, like the core of a flame where it burned the hottest. Murderbot quickly snapped its gaze forward again as Art set to patch up the mangled bits of its hips and back. As promised, Art's hands didn't even graze Murderbot's skin until the one time it needed to tilt the SecUnit's torso to get at a hard-to-reach spot. The contact made Murderbot jolt, even if it wasn't entirely unpleasant. A long 10-second silence stretched between them.
"You're important." —Art is looking at Murderbot's face again—"I had that emotional collapse because you're important and I thought you were gone." Art's expression almost makes it look like Art was getting ready to tell a joke about Murderbot's slow processing speed to respond to the question. But that joke doesn't come. which made the SecUnit nervous in a way that nearly plummeted its performance reliability.
"Not important in a weird way," Murderbot continued. It felt a strange flushing sensation along its skin that it didn't know how to explain if Art noticed. Emotions were complicated, far too complicated to discuss now in a potentially hostile situation. Or ever, now that it thought about it. Art didn't comment on anything for a painfully long time as it finished the repairs. When the medkit was snapped closed, Art stood up to its full height.
"You're important in a not weird way to me, too." Art said as it offered a hand to help Murderbot up. It was a simple gesture that Murderbot could accept or ignore, and maybe, given the circumstances, it should have ignored it. But after pulling back on its damaged shirt, Murderbot reaches up and accepts the hand, letting Art pull it to its feet. It gingerly tested its weight on its repaired hip, and when the joint held, it finally let go of Art's hand.
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Will this become a thing? Maybe?