#binggoogle

He forced himself to grin, despite the blackness eating at the edges of his vision, despite the pain. “I almost didn’t come back.”

He motioned to his left arm, which was dented and bent out of place, wiring sticking out from his shoulder and elbow joints. Then he pulled off his cracked shades, revealing the sparking, empty socket of his missing eye.

Red and Green looked up in unison, eyebrows raising in surprise.

Oliver clapped a hand over his mouth, stifling a gasp. Three pairs of glowing crimson eyes swept up and down, surveying and taking scans of the damage.

Finally, when Oliver spoke, his voice was distorted and glitchy. “Ww-wwHHat h-haaappened?”

Bing looked down, pushing aside the red blinking warning lights. “Well . . “

Several hours earlier.

“You are inferior. If you cannot do anything right, then you should just leave.”

Those words echoed through Bing’s head as he stormed out into the bitter cold, slamming the door behind him, ignoring the way the whirling snowflakes sizzled and popped as they came into contact with the smooth metal of his synthetic skin.

“Fine, then I will!”

His reply had been fraught with the dreaded emotions that Blue seemed to despise so much. The look that Blue had given him after was blank. Empty.

And it hadn’t even been that. The final straw hadn’t been the look. It hadn’t even been the fight itself.

It had been the way Blue had said it: completely monotone, no emotion whatsoever. Nothing, even, in his eyes, behind those square glasses Bing liked to take off sometimes so he could press kisses to Blue’s nose.

It was if he couldn’t even care enough to hate him.

Fine, then.

Bing’s processor picked up, the loud whirring the only sound present as he stood there in the driveway, snow falling around him so thickly that it would be impossible for a regular human to see.

As it was, Bing was an android, even if he was a shitty one.

He headed toward the hulking shape of the car parked in the driveway.

It was Dark’s car: one he used to make trips into town to pay bills or run errands when needed. No one else was allowed to use it. No one else dared use it for fear they’d find their heads separated from their bodies or their hearts torn from their chests.

This didn’t occur to Bing as he broke the driver’s window with one fist.

It only took a quick online search for him to be able to hot-wire the car, and another to figure out how to drive.

Soon he was shakily pulling out of the driveway, throwing the car into drive, and taking off down the icy, snow-slicked road. He faintly registered that “Jingle Bells” was playing on the radio, drifting cheerily from the speakers. He ignored it.

As it turned out, “icy” and “snow-slicked” were massive problems when it came to driving.

Maybe Bing was too busy stewing in his anger and hurt to notice that the wheels weren’t moving the way they should. They slid, and as a result, the car jerked back and forth dangerously.

Maybe the tears- not real tears. Bing wasn’t human. His tears were of the same lubricant that kept his joints moving- were too thick to see the ice coating the road or to notice the wheel jerking from his hands.

He did notice when the car slid out of control and flipped.

When he came to, there was broken glass everywhere and he appeared to be upside down, the only thing holding him in place being the seatbelt.

He tried to move. His left arm wouldn’t respond. Was it still there?

Then came the searing pain in his head, centered around his right eye, and Bing screamed.

He didn’t know how long he hung there but eventually his screams faded to soft cries which faded to faint whimpers as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

No one would come for him. He would deactivate there, and Blue would get what he always wanted.

Then he heard a car, and that roused him from his half-conscious state. Hope blossomed inside him. A car was coming!

“Help . .” His voice came out cracked and barely more than a whisper.

He cleared his throat, some lubricant dripped from his mouth, fell into the darkness above- below?- him, and tried again.

He must have done something right, because the car rolled to a stop, tires crunching over snow and ice and glass and metal.

“There he is,” a voice- was that Dark? Bing could barely hear it- said, then snapped, “Stay there! I will tell you if I need your help.”

A figure appeared next to him, crouching so as to see through the broken window.

“Quite a predicament,” Dark tsked thoughtfully, then, with one hand, wrenched the car door off. “You are lucky. Quite lucky indeed that I happened to be in a good mood today and decided to come get you.”

“I detect a-”

“Yes, Blue, I know!” Dark hissed over his shoulder. Then he turned back to Bing. “Let’s get you out, shall we?”

A few moments- long, painful moments that felt like an eternity- later, Dark had managed to pry Bing from the car. He laid him on the ground. “Blue, get over here.”

Bing shut his eyes- eye?- to avoid looking at Blue but he heard him step forward.

“Take the shard of glass from his eye. Do it quickly.”

A cold, metal hand placed itself on Bing’s forehead, pressing down to keep him steady. Another hand gripped the jagged shard of glass protruding from his eye.

Then the glass was ripped from his socket, and Bing’s scream pierced the night.

Now.

“And I, uh, didn’t pass out or nothing. They put me in the car and, uh, we came back here.” Bing took a shaky step back, leaned against the wall so he wouldn’t fall. “I, uh-”

He collapsed.

Oliver gave a cry of surprise and ran forward to try and catch him, but there was someone already there, gathering Bing up and holding him tightly against a firm chest.

Bing passed out to the sound of soft whirring.

Blue pressed a gentle kiss to Bing’s forehead as he charged and recovered. He’d been severely damaged: one arm disconnected, the other barely working, circuitry all over his body had been fried due to the snow, and he’d been extremely lucky that the glass that had taken his eye had not pierced his central processor, otherwise he would not have lived to make it home.

He would not have lived, and Blue would have had to live with those awful things he had said, and the way Bing had looked when he said them.

Emotions. Guilt. Anger. Hurt. Love. Such pesky things. Yet, Blue had to deal with them.

He smoothed back Bing’s hair and carefully set his beloved shades- the cracked lenses now replaced with brand new ones- on the bed next to his hand.

“I would have come sooner,” he whispered, settling into the chair next to him. “But Dark wished to speak with me.”

About his foolishness. About how his cruelty and bias had resulted in the almost-death of a powerful android who was useful to his plans. He left that part unsaid.

“I will be here when you wake up.” He promised. Then: “playing: Christmas music.”