Chapter Text
So, I had a problem.
My left gunport was sticking, causing an unacceptable delay when I deployed it. I didn't want to delay repairs any longer than necessary, because things always go wrong and it would be just my luck for us to get attacked by raiders or something en route to the wormhole when we went home from this survey, or something.
That wasn't the problem. There was someone on the survey with us who almost certainly had the right kind of skills to complete the necessary repairs—it was Gurathin. That wasn't the problem either, oddly enough.
The problem was that there had been some kind of a moment between us the other night when he was demonstrating how to properly maintain footwear, and I didn't know why, but I'd started thinking about him… differently, and I didn't know what to do about it. I felt weird and uncomfortable thinking of being around him, but not the same way I normally feel weird and uncomfortable around humans and augmented humans. I didn't know how to handle it, and all these weird feelings were not helping me get my gunport fixed.
I'd been avoiding him since the night with the boots, but I wasn't sure if he'd noticed. I hoped he hadn't noticed, because that might hurt his feelings, and for some reason I really didn't want to do that. I'd made him cry the other night, but it hadn't been on purpose, and it had only been for a couple of seconds, so maybe it wasn't too bad? Whatever, like I even cared about some stupid augmented human's stupid feelings.
(Fuck, I really did care about his stupid feelings. What was wrong with me?)
Anyway, there were only so many days left in the survey, and I really needed to get my gunport fixed, but I hadn't been able to bring myself to ask Gurathin for help. Two evenings in a row I'd found myself standing just outside his door, on the verge of sending a feed alert asking to come in, but I just couldn't bring myself to actually do it. I was running out of time to get my shit together, though.
It was afternoon, and all the various scientists on the survey had clomped back through the thick mud and were all busy loading their samples into the testing machines and doing whatever-it-was to them. Ratthi and Thiago were gossiping again, which they seemed to be doing a lot of, lately. I tried not to listen in, I didn't want more highlights about Thiago's former relationship with Gurathin. Or Ratthi's, either.
It was still hard to believe that he'd been with both of them at one point or another in the past and I'd had no idea about it. Not that I really cared about the biographical details of my humans’ lives, since it's normally not relevant to security. It's just that it was hard to imagine Gurathin being in a relationship with anyone. He always seemed so self-contained. But apparently things had been serious enough with Thiago that they had lived together, and from the gossip I'd been overhearing, his relationship with Ratthi had been a brief but intense fling right up until Gurathin called it off for reasons that Ratthi still wasn't very clear on. Apparently they'd wanted different things, but Gurathin had either been unwilling or unable to explain what that meant in any greater detail.
I still didn't know why or how things with Thiago had ended, but I was sure that I'd end up finding out, given how much he and Ratthi were talking about what was, as far as I could tell, ancient history.
Anyway, the scientists were all doing their jobs and Gurathin, being a system analyst, was on the other side of the habitat doing something-or-other to some malfunctioning sensor equipment,so it's not like Ratthi and Thiago were talking about Gurathin right in front of him. They hadn't even used his name, just referred to him as “our mutual friend”.
And I didn't care about what they were saying, but my drone was right there, so I was going to be subjected to their gossip session anyway, unless I decided to filter out audio, which I was debating doing. Thankfully, right about then Gurathin messaged the group on the feed that he made progress with the something-sensor and would be there shortly to bring it back to the storage locker, and Ratthi and Thiago switched to talking about work instead, looking sheepish as they did so. That was a relief.
Later that cycle, after the humans had eaten dinner and mostly gone back to their quarters for the evening, I found myself standing outside Gurathin's door again. I couldn't put it off any longer. I was going to have to ask him for help.
I hated having to ask for help.
I sent the stupid feed message, though, explaining the problem and what I needed, and waited for a reply. I got an acknowledgement, and less than a minute later the door opened and Gurathin stepped out, carrying his tool kit. Unfortunately, I was already standing in front of the door and he bumped right into me and bounced off.
Okay, to be fair to me, I really hadn't expected him to immediately rush out the door like that.
I caught him so he didn't fall on his ass, (because that would be just a perfect way to get this interaction started) , and then quickly let him go once I determined he'd regained his stability. He stammered apologies for running into me, and then nervously invited me into his cabin.
That was odd. He hadn't been nervous the other night when he invited me in. Then again, I hadn't surprised him right outside his doorway that time, so maybe that had something to do with it.
“You said you're having a problem with your left gunport?” Gurathin asked. He was looking away from me, which I normally prefer, but he was so obviously not - looking-at-me that it was a little annoying.
Yes, I said, over the feed. I'd already told him that, so I didn't see why he was asking.
Can you show me?
Okay, so I knew that I'd have to expose my gunport in order to get it fixed, but I still felt immensely awkward pushing up my sleeve. I wanted to hide in a corner. The thing is, my arm guns are one of those things that mark me unmistakably as a SecUnit, and I don't go around just showing them off to the whole wide world. It felt weird giving Gurathin a look at one.
Still, this was what I had to do in order to get it fixed, so I just had to get over myself and show him the stupid thing. Feeling intensely vulnerable, I popped open my gunport and extended my gun. Pointed at the wall, of course, I'm not a complete idiot. I have complete control over when I fire my guns, but it's just a bad idea to point a weapon at something you don't intend to shoot.
Gurathin’s gaze was intent, but impersonal. Professional. It still felt strange to have him looking at it, though, and I tried to just ignore the feeling. He didn't try to touch it or anything, just looked. Assessed. My organic parts squirmed at the focused attention.
He gestured for me to sit in the chair by the small desk. The desk was right beside the bed, which Gurathin sat on. Then he pulled out a roll of tools from his toolkit and got to work.
I looked away. My drones had a perfectly good view of things, I didn't need to look with my eyes. I also tried to watch some media, but the sensations were just too distracting and I couldn't focus. I have a lot of sensors in my guns and their housing, because the guns are an important part of my function, so I was feeling a lot.
First he just kind of poked around. He was narrating what he was doing, I guess to try and make me more comfortable or something, and he said he was comparing what he was seeing to the repair manuals he had stored in his augments. I didn't ask how he'd gotten ahold of SecUnit repair manuals, and he didn't offer to tell me.
“Can you tell me more about the problem?” he asked, and I did my best to describe where specifically I was feeling it stick, and clicked my guns in and out a few times so he could see the motion. The delay was too slow to detect with human senses, but he believed me that there was a problem—I didn't realize how important that was until just then, but trust me, it was a huge relief. I guess part of me had been worried he'd say that he couldn't see anything wrong, and there was no big deal, and it meant a lot to me that he hadn’t done that.
Then Gurathin really got down to work.
First, he took a flexible brush and ran it over all the little struts and hinges and other moving parts that controlled the motion of my guns when I deployed and retracted them. That was a lot. I had to lock my joints, and I had a hard time not making any sounds while he did it. It didn't feel bad, either. Kind of the opposite, which I hadn't been expecting; I had to work hard to keep my face SecUnit-neutral. He didn’t seem to notice, thankfully.
When he was done, he had me try my left gun again, to test if there was any improvement. It felt better when I retracted it, like it was moving more smoothly, but it still stuck a bit when I opened it. Gurathin frowned at that, a crease forming between his brows.
What? I asked him. It's not reassuring when someone working on you makes weird faces.
“Can I borrow one of your drones? I need to get a better look at something.” Uh, wow, that was kind of a big ask. Then again, he was doing me a favour, so it's not like I was going to say no or something. Reluctantly, I handed off one of my drones, and he gently took control of it.
He closed his eyes while he looked through the small intel drone. He had to stop what he was doing with his hands in order to move the drone, but he eventually got it into a position where he could see what he needed to, and then kept poking around, eyes still closed so he could focus on the drone input. It was so hard not to twitch at the sensation of his tools in me. He got quiet at this point, and the only sounds in the room were the small noises his tools made as he worked.
Finally, he said something. Not something good, of course.
“I'm going to have to…” he stopped to look for words, presumably trying to find some that wouldn't freak me out. Failing at that, he continued, “I'll need to partially disassemble the housing to get a closer look at the internal components.” Yeah, that wasn't reassuring at all. I wondered what that would feel like and suppressed a shiver.
I sent an affirmative sigil over the feed, and he got back to work. He started narrating what he was doing again, too.
This part was even harder to ignore than the brush had been. To start with, he needed me to disengage certain systems, and enter maintenance mode. I had only ever been in maintenance mode when company techs worked on me, performing repairs that the cubicles weren't capable of. I would have felt less vulnerable peeling open my chest cavity, but I did it. With maintenance mode enabled, Gurathin could actually do things like disassemble my gunport housing without my systems registering an attack. Threat assessment dropped so sharply it almost made me dizzy, and risk assessment went offline completely; it felt so strange.
I wasn't used to feeling like this. I felt as vulnerable like this as I had that time my brain got rebuilt after the thing with the company gunship—maybe more vulnerable, really. I hadn't really known what was going on at that time. But right now, despite feeling intensely vulnerable, I didn't feel unsafe.
Eyes still closed because he was using the drone for visual input, Gurathin continued to narrate what he was doing as he opened up my arm and started taking it apart. That felt so weird. I think the weirdest part was that I trusted him to do it.
He had to peel back some of the skin overlay over the gun housing, so he could take out some small but important screws holding things in place. Then he popped the whole thing right out, and I did my best not to yelp. It felt weird. There were wires trailing from the gun into my arm, so everything was still connected, and I could still feel everything he was doing.
Then he slowly and methodically started taking me apart, still narrating everything he was doing in that dry, impersonal voice, which was starting to get a bit hoarse by now.
I had expected it to feel bad, but it didn't. In fact, I was surprised by how not-bad it felt. My attention started to drift as I got lost in the sensations. I felt every touch of one of his tools like a small jolt of electricity, except not. It was like nothing I'd ever felt before, and was surprised to find I didn’t dislike it.
After a span of time that I didn't bother to keep track of, he said, “Found it,” in a satisfied voice that made something in my torso quiver. I felt a slight strain in something that felt like my wrist.
I tried to ignore both sensations, and said, “Oh?” in a totally casual voice.
“One of the support struts was slightly bent, and I've adjusted it back to true. It looks like some grit may have gotten in there as well, so I'm going to want to brush and polish the whole assembly to make sure it's all clean and operating smoothly.”
I had wondered if he would polish it, but hadn't wanted to ask. Well, here was my answer.
As to how it felt: it felt amazing. I had been trying not to think too hard about what the repair might feel like. When the company techs worked on me it never felt like much of anything, just something that was happening to me, and I usually distracted myself with media. None of them had ever explained what they were doing, or talked to me like I was a person while they were working on me, or taken the trouble to clean and polish my components when they were finished their repairs.
He dusted and polished all the parts that didn’t normally see the light of day, and piece by piece he put me back together until my gun was completely reassembled and back in my arm. Then he kept going.
His touch was gentle, and the sensations kept building and building. He got into a rhythm with the polishing cloth when he started working on the barrel of my gun in earnest. It felt… I don’t have words for how it felt, except that I was starting to feel overwhelmed but I didn’t want him to stop. It was just like I had imagined, except better, and you know, he did use the same small, circular motions as he had on his boots the other night.
Eventually I couldn’t keep my reactions from showing up on my face, in the way I was breathing, and Gurathin paused to ask, “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” I managed, in a strangled voice. “Don't stop.”
His face did something that I couldn’t interpret easily, but he didn’t stop until I was gleaming.
All told, it had taken 2.6 hours, and it was late in the night cycle when I left his tiny cabin. It’s just as well that I left when I did, because not 2 minutes after I got back into my own cabin, Ratthi exited Thiago’s cabin and went back to his own. I was lucky we hadn’t bumped into each other—I did not want to have to explain what I’d been doing with Gurathin. Not that there was anything wrong with a bit of maintenance between… well, not friends , but… acquaintances? But still. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t really want to think about it either, but somehow, I couldn’t stop. My arm was still tingling.
I lay in bed and I clicked my gunport open and closed a few times, revelling in the smooth motion. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this good.
I had a new problem now.
I wanted Gurathin to work on my other arm.
