#android imagine

Companion droids are expensive, and you definitely couldn't afford one...

But maybe, you don't need to buy one you just need to be around long enough to have one choose you.

Suprise long fic!

Yes I used a term from Warframe as this bots name, I like it okay!

Part 2: Here

The rest of the building thinks it's a defective unit, a freak amongst the service androids that work here, but you're kind of fond of him.

Sure, the fact that your work building is shared with a morgue is strange enough, but the real oddity is that the actual morgue is run almost entirely by service androids. Something about the droids being better at the delicate tasks of funerary make-up and it being cheaper than getting human professionals, but it's not your business to know the why or how's of that part of the morgue, you really only care about visiting your unusual friend in his work area.

It's probably not healthy, mentally at least, to lie on the cold metal table in his work area while you talk with the android. But you're surprisingly comfortable as you watch him pull on fresh gloves. It's strange, unlike the other androids, he lacks the synth skin over his hands and instead chooses to wear the standard sterile gloves, the black nitrile moving easily across the mixed polymer of his hands as he turns towards you.

He's talking about the last person he had worked on, tracing the path of his work on your face, talking about how he had to remake the nose and brow area almost from scratch.

These conversations, the way he moves and acts, are what make people think he's defective; it's like he actually enjoys his work, not just programmed to complete it. Closing your eyes, you ask about anything else he's worked on while you were away over the weekend, listening to the click of the shoes the morgue makes him wear as he moves around the room, humming and asking questions here and there as he describes the other major works he had done. For a service android you find him strangely comforting, you'd only admit to yourself in the dark of night that you also find him attractive in a strange way, but that's for you and the 2am dreams of a very different kind to know.

When you open your eyes again, he's leaning over you, the lenses of his eyes focusing on your face visibly.

It's not unusual for him to do this; you think he likes to take in the shape of your face, storing the image in his data banks for reference purposes. If only you knew how many of these images he takes, storing them in folders for personal enjoyment or as much enjoyment as a droid such as he can have.

Perhaps one day he will leave the morgue, follow you up the steps into the warm upper levels and remove the thorns of your coworkers from his path and get more of your time, or maybe he will bring you down here, to his level in the cold and the dark. You seem a perfect piece on the metal of his work table, moving, breathing, talking, and so very human in a way he feels must be envy for, yet in another second his inner processors stutter, envy isn't right, droids don't want like that, no, he wants to catalogue what makes you so human to him, what makes his code loop the images of you over and over again.

All of his inner directories and logic paths lead to one definition...

He simply wants you because it is you.

Your boss was never actually meant to meet dotty, especially not seeing as his outer shell is made of prototype parts that were meant to be disposed of...

So it's only natural that when you hear your boss's voice calling your name, as you're doing the last of the repair works on a charging station that was in for refurbishment, you jumped banging your knee against your over the lap toolbox and cursing loudly. Beside you is Dottie, who immediately attempts to soothe your pain by moving the toolbox, and heading to the first aid station to find whatever he thinks is going to help the pain in your knee.

Still hissing with pain as you turn to look at your boss, completely forgetting that she didn't know dotty was in here. She's making a face, watching the service bot walk around your workshop and act like he is every bit meant to be there, your mind catches up with what's going on as she clicks her tongue, looking at you and waiting for any form of explanation as to why there are prototype parts, that she ordered destroyed, currently walking around.

"Look, dotty didn't have a shell and those parts are not really destroyable- The prototype was meant to be durable after all, it's not my fault the internals didn't work, but it just seemed like a waste, so I put them on Dotty..."

The look on your boss's face tells you everything, she's both impressed and disappointed in you.

She walks to the railing that overlooks your workshop, and sighs watching as the bot that's not meant to be there ambles back to you. You watch as he shakes her head, slumping against the safety rail, taking a moment before she speaks up. "Apart from the plates and the shell how many prototype parts make dotty... Whole?"

It takes you a good minute or so to think about that answer, fiddling with one of your tools as you look back up at her, explaining that some of the parts inside him are from other prototypes, but most of them are just left over pieces from refurbished bots, the ones that never got picked up or returned to their owners.

"I know all prototype parts are meant to be destroyed, it's not like I kept any of the main boards, it's mostly just the joints, and his shell, and some of the fine motor processors... Now that I say it out loud, if dotty wasn't such a Frankenstein bot, he would've been a possible prototype." Your musing is cut short as your boss calls your name, sighing heavily as she shakes her head.

You can already tell that she's probably going to tell you you need to shut him down and dismantle him, but part of you hopes that the friendship you had before she became the boss of the workshops, might still linger just enough that she'll let you keep him assembled. There are a few long moments of silence before she speaks up again, pointing at Dotty and making sure you're listening as she instructs you.

"You are going to take Dotty home. You are going to write off that charging station as irreparable, you're going to get this workshop presentable for the investors that are doing a walkthrough this afternoon, and I am going to put in that you deferred your end of year bonus to instead take home a refurbished service bot... Just get it out of here."

The excitement on your face must be telling as your boss holds her hand up, she's not quite just done talking.

"Any and all prototype disposal is going to the other workshop from now, no ifs, no buts. The other workshop, you'll do refurbishments and repairs, but I'm not sending any more prototypes here. Am I clear?"

You're agreeing long before she even gets to finish speaking.

The click of her heels echoes through your workshop as she leaves, you turn and look at your patchwork service bot, smiling as you tell him that he finally gets to come home. Roping him into making the workshop look presentable before you do one last look through some of the parts bins, finding some suitable synthetic skin and asking Dotty if he wants any aesthetic changes before he comes home, after all, you don't have quite the level of access to parts at home as you do at work.