#stray fic

She wasn’t even on Gerard’s radar initially, a friend of Mikey’s. She was some kid sleeping on their couch at the time. Nobody really knew much about her. Why she was there and where her family was? All some mystery.

What was known? Well.. she was around the record house pretty often. Often enough that Mikey realized that she might’ve actually lived there, he offered her a spot on their couch.

She had one of those appearances, very clearly a younger girl, very clearly in need of help. Her ability to hold down a drink and knowledgeability on music was not enough to fool many. She may have carried herself like this more mature person but then Mikey could see past his own drunken fog and see someone that was in survival mode.

She got along with the brothers, was pretty polite and thankful that they and their family were willing to take her. She would even calm her drinking habit so to be more respectful.

Mikey had neglected to ask permission before bringing her around. It was just this sudden decision and after over two weeks of not being home himself, he showed up and brought her along.

His grandma was a little surprised and would scold him in private but would otherwise accept the girl into her home. Angel had this pathetic look to her that couldn’t easily be turned away.

—

Still, in her time with Way brothers, moving in with them and becoming a part of their family, she wasn’t originally a candidate for the band. She was comfortable with just living with the family, played granddaughter and bonded with their grandma.

She clearly liked music and shared a common interest in the music they loved. But at the end of the day, she was still kind of a stranger and they really only knew what they saw. She hung out with Mikey a lot but she was quiet and didn’t actively share information about her own experiences and interests unprompted.

It was pretty common for her to follow them to their little meetings. Gerard had made a few calls and with Mikey learning to play the bass, he also had invited another guitarist and drummer into this project of his.

Angel had volunteered to be on snacks duty, she made cookies and bread with Granny. Warm freshly baked goods were never turned down so her presence was well appreciated.

It got to a point where even when she just didn’t have snacks on a particular day, the guys just got really hungry. They had associated her with food, couldn’t help it. She didn’t mind fixin food and if it really became an issue, she’d run off and cook something up.

-

Shortly before they had decided to record their first real song, or at least a demo for it, Matt got sick. Just a common cold or something but he was late and they didn’t have the time or money to reschedule. They just couldn’t do it!

Everyone was trying to contact friends or acquaintances that could fill in for the time being. It was just a frenzy of trying to find someone and the guys didn’t really notice as Angela started walking around and grabbed a pair of drumming sticks Matt lost prior.

She walked over to Gerard and tapped on his shoulder. She waited patiently as he turned and rolled his eyes to her.

“Yeah! Yeah I know it’s-“ he looks down at the phone as as the busy tone played through it. “Shit! Uh- shit! What do you want?” She asks turning to her.

She looked up to him then turned to the wall and started playing a steady rhythm against it. She remained otherwise silent, just let him listen.

She had never hinted or suggested that she could play. All those times when they were practicing, she was able to memorize their parts just from hearing and passively watching them.

Mikey ended his call too peeking up as he heard her. Her little show was nothing too serious but it showed that she at least had some sort of understanding.

No questions asked, “yes! You! Your name!” Gerard says nodding firmly. Mikey pat her on the back both brother instantly relieved.

Ray looked over to them as he put the phone back to the wall, “what’s going on?” He asks.

“We have a drummer, our little stray! She can fill in!” Mikey explains excitedly.

-

Angel was not super experienced with actually playing too much. She was in band class once upon a time and was pretty average back then.

As she played the drums for the first recording, she was cramping. She knew how the part was supposed to sound, knew the rhythm and speed of it and realized, in the moment, how much she underestimated Matt’s playing.

She was a drenched and sore mess after her recording. Was in there maybe fifteen minutes as she played and played as they added on or took from the initial ideas they had.

When she was finally done she just walked out of the room and sat outside against the building letting the cool breeze relieve her. The guys were cheering her on as they had still only now realized she had done that. Didn’t know she could drum. Didn’t think she’d be saving them like this especially.

Taking in a stray definitely worked out.

The heat of her body and the speed of her mind and heart and everything left the girl just crying for a moment in just overstimulation. Everything was too much and needed to just sit and wait it out.

She flinched when Ray joined her outside. Seeing the distant shaky look in her eyes, Ray decided not to say anything but sat against the wall with her so she wouldn’t be alone.

Stuff I want to add later includes:

the "hacking" screen B-12 does

a white version of this instead of orange, which happens when you talk to someone instead of directly to B-12

change the overall font of body text, make it match

go dark mode.... that might mess with some people's screens though so idrk

better effects, there HAS to be a way to make it glow a little bit

The fading sky was clear, but a steady wind from the east that smelled of ocean tore forcefully at the grass. Among the sounds of rippling grasses and the distant sea was the faint tinkling of a windchime placed farther up the slope. B-12 trudged between rocks and weeds, slowly meandering up the hillside looking for a place to rest his new legs. He thought- and thinking, that was nice to be able to do again- that calling himself a human at this point might not be the most accurate. It all depended of course, on the definition of “human,“ which, while being somewhat arbitrary, still probably had some kind of universally agreed upon limits. Physically, there was no reason that anyone should suspect that he was at any point a human. In the past, he had referred to himself as an AI, an artificial construct just like those around him. It was his most logical conclusion given his small world and the facts given. Back then, he had barely remembered humans’ existence. Those creatures, the “soft ones,” were honestly attributed to legend more than not-so-distant life. That idea, however, was from before he had remembered… everything.

Now, after it was all over, he wasn’t really sure he wanted the title. Nothing wrong with it, it was just that he’d be the only one.

On the other hand, he couldn’t exactly identify himself alongside the other Companions. They certainly wouldn’t mind, but it wasn’t entirely accurate either. In the end he decided to avoid thinking about it. It hurt- the loss that was supposed to be dulled centuries ago now opened up like a fresh wound for him to experience all over again. The loss of his life, the loss of himself, the loss of- No, not today. B-12 stopped, glanced around for a nice large rock, and sat down hard. Today was a day of freedom, not pain. He had fought his whole life for this moment and wasn’t about to ruin it thinking about the cost and the casualties. Immediately he put his head in his hands, trying to block out the wind. That was stupid. He’d done it all for them after all. It had been for them from the very beginning. And now that he’d finally succeeded they weren’t here. It was cruel, but there was nothing to be done about it. He wished he had the ability to have a good, genuine cry. Maybe if he did, he could move on. Instead, he looked up and watched the sun fade quickly behind the hills. It was weird. He felt ancient- like he had lived for hundreds of years. It was true of course, but the fact that he now remembered those hundreds of years made the sensation a whole lot worse. It didn’t help that he kept having to double back and explain himself to the other Companions after accidentally using an old human euphemism or slang word. That was getting old.

He knew the other Companions thought he was weird too. Although not daring to admit it, they’d give him odd side glances and jump around certain words in conversation. As if they were afraid a single word or wrong move would shatter B-12 into a million pieces again. While he didn’t plan on shattering into a million pieces anytime in the foreseeable future, given his track record he couldn’t really blame them. He liked the others… they just had a lot to learn. He might have felt ancient, but there was a certain aspect of “newness” present as well. This wasn’t as hard to understand. The new software Elliot had coded for him might have been brand new and completely custom, but it was still rough around the edges. He was still figuring out how to communicate specifics through the new operating system to his actual movements, and vice versa. Elliot claimed it was all automated, but B-12 had his doubts. His mind had the distinct feeling of a freshly moved-in apartment, where everything looks a little too in-its-place. Every so often he’d go searching for something he needed that got overlooked. And every so often he’d be holding something he didn’t know what to do with. Like the hand thing. Although the others kept telling him that it was neither normal nor necessary to want to move each finger individually, there was a definite sort of clumsiness that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get used to. Probably most concerning, however, was it seemed that his transfer to the new OS had not gone nearly as smoothly as claimed. On attempting to access some tidbit of knowledge or nugget of wisdom from the past, B-12 found his memory files in absolute shambles… again. It was, thankfully, better than last time. Everything was still in there. It was just all in the wrong order, making it exceptionally difficult to pinpoint certain ideas- no matter how new or important they were. He didn’t blame Doc or Elliot. Most likely it was the Network doing it’s thing again, just with significantly less prolonged contact. The Network, apparently, likes to scramble one’s brain like eggs. The memory thing wasn’t a terribly bad problem though. In fact, it was helping B-12 and his “best not to think about it” policy quite a lot. B-12 watched as the first star made its appearance. He was almost glad, he thought with a twinge of satisfaction. Any other human probably would have made the transition a lot worse. His “useless” computer science degree was finally paying off, never mind it being a couple centuries later. He should be able to sand down the rough corners of his Companion body programming over the coming weeks. Either way, he was very glad the other Companions had done this for him. Aside from the drawbacks, it certainly beat being stuck in the Network or in a drone. Vaguely, he wondered if the Little Outsider was staring at the night sky with him, only a couple miles away.