#nqh!nominal

(It's set literally RIGHT after N.O.M. shoots Wade btw)

Well, he’s done it. 

The guy is dead. 

He had a name, N.O.M. is very well aware that he had one, but with him being dead, there’s less reason to use it, though he had no real reason to before. He spoke all of three words to him in their brief interaction, and that was all that was needed to be said. Perhaps he could have said less.

Now, though, he needs to get away from the house, leave the gun behind to seem like the man had shot himself. Taking the synthetic skin off his left hand (and apparently also his forearm) helped. Admittedly, it made the damage from before more noticeable and heightened the risk of more damage, but he doesn't care. Unlike humans, he doesn’t have fingerprints–not if he doesn’t want them, and for that particular task, he did not want them. One could call it the perfect crime.

He manages to reach a more urban area than the suburb streets of neat, non-uniform houses of sleeping families, instead ducking out of common view and into darker alleys so he can stay hidden, and remain by himself. 

“Oh, hello!”

N.O.M. stops, momentarily caught off guard. He shouldn’t have been. Nobody should have been able to sneak up on him. He hadn’t heard himself being followed. He didn’t get even a faint sense of being watched. 

Turning around, he stops once more upon the sight of who–if it even could be considered a who–had spoken. The voice had been strange to begin with, not in any typical human’s vocal range, nor the sort with the digital edge of a machine. It was like someone had inhaled helium and decided to shout instead of simply speak. It was already annoying. 

The not-human is short, perhaps about shoulder-height, with skin a handful of shades off from neon lime green, though still immediately less than pleasant to see. In comparison to many things in the world around it, it’s rather bright. Its eyes are large and dark, nearly black, but still sharp. A smaller, slightly brighter set of secondary eyes trace the line of its cheekbones, these ones with vibrant, amber-orange pupils thin and vertically slitted like a cat’s. Out of the top of its head, sprouting like new flowers in spring from thick, messy brown hair instead of soil, are two stalks, presumably antennae. That and the large, dark eyes make N.O.M. think of humans’ general concept when they think of aliens. While that feels fitting, something still feels incorrect about that label.

“You’re… not a person.” He observes cautiously. It nods. Well, that’s a relief, in a way. But now, that means he has to worry about the fact that it isn’t human.

“Nope! And from the looks of it, you’re not quite human yourself.” It replies cheerfully, tilting its head. “Wow, we have a similar voice. I can sound like that, too.” As it speaks, its voice bleeds out of its high register, deflating into something human, and very distinctly similar to N.O.M.’s own voice. It’s still lighter, but moreso due to personality than the actual vocal range now. 

“What are you? Why are you here?” N.O.M. demands. He’s lost the gun he’d used to shoot the man he’d killed. An offhanded glance at a card had told him the man’s name was Wade Box, though it serves next to no use with its owner dead. He admittedly regrets not keeping it now. However again, with no true means of carrying it without holding it or risking it falling loose, he’d chosen not to play with the chance of shooting himself. And in any case, he was not preparing to see a creature far less humanoid than himself.

“Well, I sensed a lot of spite around here, so I thought I’d come see for myself!” It explains. “I’m The Problem, by the way. What’s your name?”

Disgruntled and unsure what to make of the situation, N.O.M. crosses his arms. “The Problem’s a title. It’s not a name.” He tells it. It shrugs. “No, it’s a pretty good name for me. I’m kinda like, made of spite, and I cause problems for people. It’s kinda my thing. Although, some people also call me Nom. So you can too, if you want.” As the android processes this, it steps a little closer, looking him over. “I like the red eyes. Real scary. What are you, a robot guy?” It wonders, and N.O.M. steps away, glaring in evident warning. “What are you?” He counters.

“I’m a problem!” It says, which is as brightly stated as it is unhelpful. “I don’t understand what that means! A problem isn’t... you don’t make a lot of sense.” He sighs. As he continues to reflect on the thing’s words, he concludes that its origins are evidently not manmade, so perhaps like how humans have varying cultures and languages, this creature has something similar, and problem means something different to it than it does to him. “What’s it like, being a robot? It seems kind of fun.” It asks, then perks up, ears lifting as it appears to have an idea. “Wait, I have an idea! Hold still. Don’t wanna atomize you.” The Problem (as he may as well call it if it insists upon being called that. He certainly won’t call it Nom.)  instructs.

“What?!” N.O.M. exclaims. He doesn’t move, torn between wanting to move simply to be defiant and challenge the offhanded but extremely concerning comment, and not wanting to die if it’s serious.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be perfectly fine! Probably. I don’t know, I’ve only done this a few times and none of the other guys were made pretty much entirely of metal and programming.” It assures him. N.O.M. stutters in the same beat that it disappears, and something heavy descends upon him. Not in the physical sense, however he still looks around to check, but inside himself, in between his frame and skin, something is settling and fitting around him, like water conforming to a container’s shape. 

“Oh, neat! It’s kinda loud in here, isn’t it?” He says, then realizes that A: why would he say that, of course he knows how loud it is, not just literally as systems run softly in the back of his head and allow him to function, but also that of the coding and programs that make him aware, and B: he didn’t say that.

“Where are you?” He growls, finding increasing difficulty in movement. The sensation of additional weight makes him stagger, reaching out with one arm to lean against the brick wall beside him.

“Still here! Give it a second, let things settle in.” He replies. He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like any of this, really, but that in particular, how his voice is saying words that aren’t his, is an experience he immediately wants to have end.

“What… what is this? What are you doing?” N.O.M. demands, trying to at least raise his hand and discovering that commanding his own body is like trying to run through syrup. Something won’t let him. It’s not a block in code, not an error–not one he recognizes–but there is something telling him no.

“Oh, yeah! I’m taking over your body for a minute! Never been inside a robot before!” He answers himself.

Except that wasn’t his voice, though it still had the robotic edge to it. It was higher, more energetic. 

His left arm lifts, but not by his will. N.O.M. grunts, not from pain, but frustration and coiling anger at the fact he no longer has control over himself anymore. He is well past taking orders. His actions are meant to be his and his alone. 

His other hand, the one still wrapped in synthetic skin, curiously pokes his palm, running his thumb over one of the worse patches of rust and coming away gritty and a dark burnt orange. “Cool arm. What happened to it?” The Problem wonders, turning it over and now inspecting the wiring that grants N.O.M. movement of the limb and its digits as it slowly opens and closes N.O.M.’s hand in a fist. “None of your business. Get out.” N.O.M. answers sharply. He wants it gone. He never said it could do this to him. 

“Hm… in a minute. I haven’t even gotten to start learning what this is like!” It tells him. It lowers his hand, makes him stand up straight, and turns in a slow circle, stretching his arms and deliberately inhaling deeply. “My body is not yours. Get. Out.” N.O.M. insists, trying with more force to have more than just partial control of his tongue, and ending up unsuccessful in this endeavor.

“In a minute! You’re really impatient.” The Problem chastises, smiling and sighing again. 

“I’m sorry, let me just willingly give over my body to something I’ve never met before and have no reason to trust.” N.O.M. seethes, trying yet again to regain control of his body and failing. It doesn’t seem to be doing anything to stop him; its mere existence in his systems appears to be suppression enough.

“Thank you, that’d actually be really helpful and enjoyable for us both!” The Problem says, then chuckles as it twists to apparently see how far around N.O.M. can turn. He has a relatively similar build and frame to a human, though there are a few things he could do with having altered. Human bodies are not the absolute most efficient shapes at times. “I guess I can let you go now. I mostly wanted to see what it was like in your head, seeing the world in your eyes. I kind of expected everything to be all red.” It decides. The weight withdraws, leaving him once again staggering as he very suddenly comes into command of himself again. His hands ball up into fists, and he turns, looking to possibly strike The Problem, but they are several steps away, and watching him with a knowing gaze, like they’d expected, perhaps anticipated an attack already and preemptively made a cautious action. 

“There! Now, see, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” It says, then comes back into a closer range once it decides N.O.M. isn’t going to attack anymore. This is further supported by the way the android lowers his hands.

“Never do that again. Or I will make you regret it.” N.O.M. warns, getting another laugh in response. He scowls, then lunges forward, raising his hands once again before stopping just short of connecting with the not-human to land a blow. It jumps back with a startled cry, looks at him, and smiles broadly.

“You know, I like you! You’re really fun! So tell you what–I’ll give you a lot of spite, ‘cause it seems like you’re gonna put it to good use!” It tells him, body going still and the secondary eyes still tracking N.O.M.’s movements while the primary ones lose focus. N.O.M. waits to feel something.

He doesn’t.

“There ya go! I’ll be watching to see what you do with it all, so make sure you’re really spiteful! I’m sure that won’t be a problem for you, though. You seem plenty enough already.” It states after a few more moments of silence, snapping back into full awareness and  continuing to grin at him with sharp canines. “This was fun! I’ll leave you alone, though. At least for now. Bye!”

True to its word, it disappears, without fanfare or any visible effects. It’s merely there one moment, then not, as though it never was at all. And yet, it was; not only does N.O.M. have the footage in his own head to replay the entire experience, but he has many various upsides over human beings, that being that he can’t experience hallucinations (and if he can, then that’s stupid and why would that ever be a thing) seeing as he isn’t human, but for a brief matter of moments, he cannot help but wonder. 

It doesn’t seem to be coming back, though, so with any luck, he can continue on and not have to deal with something even he struggles to comprehend. Humans are a headache enough.

With a sigh, N.O.M. rolls his shoulders, looks around the alley in case someone had taken advantage of the short lapse of awareness and attempted to sneak closer, then continues walking into the dark.

A/N

I liked the idea that N.O.M. took off the cover to his hand and for some reason it also removed the bit around his forearm, so that he could shoot Wade and then make it look like Wade shot himself. A thing made of metal wouldn't leave fingerprints, right? Also The Problem's secondary eyes are orange like resin as a reference to BF!Nom <3 so there you go