Numb.
From the tip of his tail to the glass that constructed his digital face. Everything was numb. Flight was too much for him, too fast, too much like his thoughts. His wings now trailed behind him along with his tail. Walking was good, made his thoughts slow down. Slow down they had.
But now he was numb all over. In body and mind, he felt nothing. His thoughts and actions at first frantic and looking for purpose, now reduced to being useless. He didn't care where his body moved, so long as it moved away from where the hurt was.
Hurt was worse than feeling numb, and right now numb was his friend.
Because how else do you cope with constant betrayal?
First it was with J and her constant abuse of him. She'd never wanted him around, not in this life or the previous one. She made it clear how she felt about him and he took it in stride, allowing this abuse to continue until that fateful night when Uzi saved him from J's attempt to murder him.
V was... complicated. He still didn't remember everything from back then, but he was pretty sure they both liked each other. Then, Cyn happened and everything changed. In this new life, she'd denied their past together while he'd had it wiped and what little wasn't repressed by his favorite coping mechanism. Any attempt made to reconnect with her went nowhere, the other drone would deflect or outright deny him attention. Not to forget the secret-keeping she was terribly fixated on, this hurt not only him but Uzi as well, and speaking of...
Uzi, the one drone in this life he felt he could trust at least until what happened earlier. What was so important she wanted to hide from him? She knew how that hurt him and her when V did it. Was he overreacting? He didn't know. He kind of didn't care.
N just couldn't believe he'd fallen for another drone who'd hurt him. J was right, he was an idiot.
The snow crunched softly beneath his feet and the wind gave a gentle cry through the skyscrapers. He gave no further attention to his environment aside from the occasional sidestep to avoid debris. It was cold, and his body grew to reflect that as his panic died down.
And the world seemed to stay like that for a while.
The wind became especially loud at some point, he noticed that much, like some storm was coming. Was it time for another toxic death storm? He barely gave it any mind until the world decided to make it for him. Something barreled into him from behind knocking him forward onto his face. He didn't care, the ground was fine too. It was seconds later this force of nature pinned him down with its appendages. It attempted something between his shoulders, only to quickly give up and flip him over.
He came face-to-face with it as it used all four of its hands to hold him in place. Strangled sobs came out of its gaping maw as it came closer and bit into his shoulder. The beast seemed to enjoy the taste of his oil as it held that in its jaws for a second before quickly throwing itself off him and throwing his own body while it sailed through the air. He landed a distance away as it quickly sprang into motion again. N made no effort to get up as it picked him up again, this time with its hands. The pixelated mess on its screen attempted to tell him a story of what was in control and how it felt. Nothing it said gave him any motivation to stop the onslaught.
It threw him to a wall and quickly pinned him against it thanks to a quick boost from its wings. It cried as it held him there, its wings pinning his arms. N blinked expressionless. His mouth opened as he wrestled for any emotion to take over. At a loss, he finally spoke, "if that's what you really want to do with me, then... go ahead. What use am I?". The beast continued its caterwaul as he laid there unblinking. It attempted to do something, bite him he guessed, but evidently couldn't. "Hey", he directed it, "it helps to tear the head off first. Makes it easier to drink, Uzi".
The beast -Uzi- drew back in shock, her screen flickering. Her hold on him immediately dropped, his body quickly falling to the ground, as she threw herself away from him. He could hear her voice returning as familiar panicked gasps broke into her wailing before quickly being overtaken by something more easily identifiable as sobbing was heard. "Uzi?", he asked, not getting up from once again being face-down in the snow, "I know you're overheating, Uzi".
"N-N! I j-just-", she sobbed, "I just tried to k-kill you! And you're just-".
He turned his head to face her, false eyes unblinking, "you've already hurt me enough, just put me out of my misery already".
Her head shook him a negative furiously, "what are you even saying? I'm not gonna do that! I'm s-sorry I hurt you! I didn't mean to!".
"Is it fun having your finger over everything I do?", unblinking yellow peered back at hallowed purple.
"N, wha... What are you talking about?", she looked at him in such confusion.
His head rolled elsewhere briefly before rolling back to address her, "all the weird stuff you've been doing around me lately".
She was silent for a moment. "N, you've... also been acting weird around me lately".
"What do you have to hide from me? I thought I could trust you", he blinked as a tinge of pain coursed through him.
Uzi took a few steps back on instinct, her tail making sharp coiled movements. Her eyes were wide and wild. "No, no! I can't! I c-cant-".
"Uzi!", he shouted as emotion finally returned to him, "you know how much doing that hurts me!".
She blinked, digital tears appearing in her display, "if... If I do that then I'll... ruin... w-what we have".
Pulling himself into a sitting position, he asked, "Uzi? We're already messing up pretty bad. Just come clean about it".
Her wings took a protective curl around her, "N, you don't understand. You'll... want... to...".
"Want to what?".
Her teeth bared at him as she wailed, "because you'll want to leave me! You already don't want me around, it's gonna ruin everything!".
The two remained in the snow as Uzi closed her wings around herself. He could hear gentle sobs in her direction, and he was truthfully feeling a little ashamed of how this was going. Sure, she was hiding something like V, but this was a completely new reaction, something he'd never seen from either of them.
After a moment, he got up and walked over to her. "Hey, Uzi?", he asked, taking a hold on her wings so he could look at her, "just tell me and I'll tell you what you want to know".
"...Are you sure?", an eye looked back at him through her hands covering her face.
"No more secrets", he added.
She hesitated before saying, "sure". Her wings unveiled her as she finished getting herself into a calmer state. "I'll start", she began, "I, uh, realized...".
"That?", he suggested, a little nervous to get it over with.
"That I...".
"I".
"I kinda...".
He eyed her anxiously, "like".
"Like?", she exclaimed. They both gasped as their respective sentences seemed to line up. Anxiety was in the air as Uzi held a hand up, "o-on three?", she asked.
"Yeah", he nodded.
Her fingers counted down from three and the two drones said at the same time the last word of the sentence.
"...You" .
Uzi's face lit up in a fluster as soon as it registered. He guessed his must have too. After a moment, anxious laughter erupted from Uzi, "I-I feel so stupid about this".
He chuckled, "that's my line. Why were you so afraid of telling me that?".
She stopped like a deer caught in headlights, her expression giving way back to terror. "I-I... I thought you were still... about V...".
"I haven't been... like that about V for a while now", he said, bitterness tainting his mouth on the topic, "you could've told me anyway". Or I could've told you ...
She backed away a few steps, "I thought you'd go back on our promise and leave me if I got between that, and... I didn't want to lose you, even if it meant denying my feelings...".
It was like a torrent of emotion hit them both as Uzi opened up. N's face tensed, lips pulled apart, as he immediately went to wipe his face with a hand. "I'm so sorry , Uzi", he mustered out as his voice became hit with emotion, "if... if I'd just been open with my feelings...".
"N...".
He wiped his face again, hoping to stifle the digital tears forming knowing it was mostly useless, "because I knew I fell for you and I was scared of being hurt again! Because I was afraid of you doing what V did to me! Because I'm stupid and I can't face my trauma so I just repress it! I'm a mess, Uzi, I'm a mess who can't handle anything!".
"S-Stop", Uzi walked a step forward, "don't say that about yourself. There's... good reasons why you're the most important drone to me".
"...Like what?".
Uzi wasted no time in her reply, desperate to get it out, "you're the only drone who wants me around! Because you treat me like I belong, like I'm not an outcast! Like I'm not a freak! I probably wouldn't even be alive right now if it wasn't for you! That's because you care, N! Because you care!".
"I hurt you!", he wailed, "you're still overheating even!".
"I hurt you !", she countered, "I was so lost in my head about us that I went stupid and tried to hurt you! V's right, I'm a danger !".
N took a step forward, "Uzi, no... I got you all messed up over me and V, alright? You... you don't take that stuff well and.... it... comes out like that".
Her hands flew to her face, covering her eyes, "I'm a disgusting, jealous freak who literally melts down when I think you don't want to be around me. That's... that's not normal. That's not ok...".
"Uzi, you know I wouldn't do that, we talked about that at camp", his hand raised in concern.
"You kept avoiding me after!", her hands clenched her face, "and I know I messed up! I just thought that... if I couldn't be... who you wanted, then casual stuff was ok".
Another step forward, "y-you didn't mess up! I liked it when you did that".
Her head shook, as did her tail, "you didn't! You'd flinch and get away from me! And I was so desperate for that kind of connection I kept doing it...".
Instantly, he was taken back to standing in the snow, watching as she walked away, the vial on her tail being the last thing he could see of her at some point. Another attempt at capturing her attention down the drain. One of many attempts he'd made since landing on the planet. He'd always remembered wondering why she'd never reciprocated his efforts. Had he just not been convincing enough? Was he just unlovable? Back to the present, he knew that was wrong looking at the drone before him spilling her heart out to him.
He must have lost focus on the present, because he became aware of Uzi making slow steps away. Under her breath, he could make out muttered apologies. "Uzi", he reached out for her, "Uzi wait".
"...What?", she couldn't even look at him.
He blinked as he steeled himself, hands clenching, "I... want you around".
Her tail moved out of his view, "...so we can keep hurting each other?".
"That's... That's not what's going on. Ok maybe it is, sorry. But, Uzi... I'm sorry", he found himself unable to look at her, "I'm sorry I let my fears and stuff get in the way and hurt you... me. I'm such a screwup, I didn't realize how much I needed a wake-up call. I'm sorry".
"N?".
He grabbed his face in his hands, an instinctive reflex to catch tears that would never come. His shoulders dropped as though a weight overcame him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry...", he pleaded, "I messed up everything".
And he stood crying for what felt like a long time. Crying, until the emotions in him nulled again to the point he could focus on anything else. With a small peek through his hands, he could Uzi peeking back through her own, a wing evidently having been formerly used to cover her too as it hovered barely away from her face. He could feel his own hanging limply off his back still.
It sunk in how fragile they still were, despite all they've been through.
Slowly, he eased his hands off his face, straightening his body out. He could tell she was in a similar spot, her own display of emotion having relaxed by now. "Uzi?", he asked taking a step towards her.
She answered with a step back, "n-no wait. N, don't come any closer!".
"Uzi...?".
Uzi must've noticed the hurt expression that overcame him in that instant, "n-no wait. Sorry! I'm sorry! It's just... I'm still overheating... I'll hurt you...".
Oh. Yeah that was a good reason. He was relieved that she was just worried about him over her condition. However...
He took another step towards her, "it's ok, let me fix this".
"N, no. Don't-".
"Uzi, it's ok. I made this happen to you in the first place. Drink as much of my oil as you need", he said, another step taken.
He could see her tail kink up in tension, "I'll lose myself! I'm gonna hurt you if I-". She stopped as she noticed his hands on his coat button, fingers undoing the connection. "N, what are you doing?".
"Hm? Oh, just giving you more room to work with", he said as he took a firm hold on his coat collar, easing it off the side Uzi bit into before and exposing still-healing bite marks.
Her hands renewed their commitment to her face, eyes disappearing yet newly-formed blush unable to take shelter with them. "Are you crazy? You're gonna make me melt!", she fumed.
Yellow eyes blinked, "Uzi, I'm not getting naked".
Her fingers softened up their grasp on her face, purple eyes peeking through her fingers and accompanying blush unable to be hidden. She seemed to soften up at this, likely noticing his own confused fluster. Her wings retracted to more natural positions behind her as he took another step towards her, her hands slowly dropping from her face. She blinked as some disturbed look came over her, one he knew well from his life spent out here. Black boots crunched in the snow as she made her way over to him - slow, restrained.
N sat down as she approached, Uzi getting on her knees in front of him as she set her hands on him. As he put his arms around her, he noted how warm she was. It was bizarre to feel such a temperature from a Worker, an experience he wasn't sure if he'd ever get used to and hoped he'd never see again. As he put a reassuring hand to the back of her head, he told her, "it's gonna be alright, don't hold back".
Her wings grabbed him, forcing him to the ground, serpentine tail finding his own and pinning it. Teeth that should never be so sharp bit into the casing of his shoulder again, previous wounds reopening.
It hurt, it hurt so much. Of course he'd never experienced this before. Always been predator, not prey. He lay there trying not to focus on the pain, yet finding some kind of fucked up respite from it. This pain, up until now, had only been experienced by the Workers here. Right now, he wasn't much different from the kills of his past.
Feeling normal again felt... painful. Painful to be prey, not predator.
He lay in a daze as she fed off him, her temperature cooling down. His systems blared all sorts of warnings at him, warnings he ignored as soon as they came up.
Her head rose off his shoulder, his attention catching on her. Her hair confused the shapes of her eyes for him, but it couldn't hide the oil smeared around her mouth - his oil.
"N? N!", her hands cupped his face, "a-are you alright?".
"Yeah, yeah... you?".
"...Freaky. I'm sorry I-".
He tried offering a smile, "don't be. You know, I always thought it'd be me who'd... ya'know, do this...".
She slumped back onto him, "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry...".
"Uzi...".
Her face pressed into his chest, continuing her apologies. He put a comforting hand on her back as she sobbed into him. "Hey", he tried, "it's alright. When tomorrow comes, this'll just be a memory of a bad day".
"...".
"I'm glad we had that talk. It was... pretty needed, huh?".
He could feel her hold him tighter. "...I love you".
He froze, trying to find the strings in the incantation she spoke.
...But he knew better now.
"...I know".