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Will moaned in pain while sleeping. His ears were pounding loudly, his own heartbeat felt like too much, his veins were swooshing like crazy and yet he just stood there. Doing nothing. Just one intense glare from the robot and then just...emptiness. He was gone -sucked into the great unknown with the other one, the bad one...
His stomach ached, he felt like screaming and vomiting and crying at the same time all the while his limbs failed to do his bidding. He was caged inside his own body, forced to watch his friend disappearing again and again into space....Like a never ending torture.
Panting Will almost jumped out of his restless slumber. That special violet glimmer of Robot's face haunted him even though he was now awake. He had told him back at the planet to walk off that cliff, to kill himself. Even though the robot clearly didn't mean to hurt his father. He was sure of it, at least now. But right then he'd just had all those stones in mind he'd collected - every stone representing a life... He'd thought it had been his responsibility to...to make him stop -to prevent any future casualties from happening. It had hurt. So much.
But somehow the real agony came only some days after. Before he'd busied himself with being angry. With trying to push any thought of his protector and best friend aside. Until he couldn't anymore.
Those days had been some dark one's. Everything had reminded him of the robot. Of all the good things he'd done and all the soft sides of him. And then there had been Dr. Smith messing with him, showing him the severed head of his friend, telling him the robot could save his dad -making space again for hope. Hope for the friend he lost.
He had been selfish. Only thinking of himself, of his own loss. Not a second had he thought of how the robot must've felt the moment he got back online. Being alive again with the last memories of Will telling him to destroy himself for his mistake, probably still feeling the impact. The sounds of him hitting the mountain's surface on his way down were still vividly in the boy's mind, as well as the severed parts of his friend falling off of him...
Will took a shaky breath. He'd been bitter at first, after he realized that the robot listened to Dr. Smith and not him anymore, that Robot worked against his family as a whole, but to be true he had to admit that it had hurt the most to be rejected and ignored. He'd even called the robot an "it" because he'd been so hurt. But he understood now. He would hate himself too after all that... He didn't even apologize head on after meeting Robot again. He'd just assumed that everything would be back to the way it had been.
He'd always thought of himself that he was one of the good one's. That he'd treated the robot as a "he", as a person, a being. With his own mind, his own personality, which was only just developing truly since that day they've met, or at least it seemed like that. But Will did a poor job in truly seeing the other one as equal. Otherwise he would've done the right thing and asked him for his forgiveness straight away.
With that in mind he simply wasn't able to understand why the robot had decided to rescue him again after pretending to not know him anymore...
Friends. It had felt so good to hear him saying that. Will sniffed. Why did he have to lose him again just after getting him back?? He couldn't even explain everything to the alien, properly apologize for what he'd done to him!
Feeling nauseated he wrapped his arms around his knees. His left arm hurt, the wound was still itching, but somehow that pain was a good one. It reminded him of the fact that the robot didn't seem to hate him entirely even though Will had been a horrible friend.
Even before he'd just used Robot mostly for his own amusement. Seeing him as some cool sidekick like in all those comic books and tv shows he'd watched. He'd felt like a superhero.
But really, he was just an idiot. He didn't even pass the test. He was a coward, not fit for duty. Even though he managed at the end to close the hatch he'd been a failure... If his father hadn't been there he would've floated around in space until the air in his suit would've been depleted. Or until a small projectile damaged his suit, which was more likely to happen.
He heard some high pitched sound and knew immediately that a foreign robot, a bad one, was near his cell. Maybe he would be killed today? Somehow he couldn't find it in himself to be that scared. There was a bit of it, yes, but nothing like his normal self. He'd lost his friend, the best one he'd even had, a second time and after that he'd been isolated from his family the moment the aliens had found their ship. The aliens probably thought something was different with him. It was as if they were searching for something. They wouldn't hurt him, just poking him with strange objects and sometimes, just like right now, they would sent one of their robots inside.
There was this sound again, he felt a nudge at his head, but knew that this would not work, like all the times before... What was he trying to accomplish? To get into his head? And if so, why couldn't they in the first place? After all his robot had been able to do it, hadn't he? Will pressed himself against the cold wall the moment this robot tried to get closer to him. Trying his best not to scream out of fear Will refused to look away.
And then he saw it. A glimpse of blue. A soft sound. One of those razor sharp claws caressing his cheek.
"Danger, Will Robinson...", he said, somehow in something like a hushed whisper -and this was all it took for Will to lose every last bit of composure. With tears streaming down his cheeks and hiccups out of his agitated state of mind he jumped right into the arms of him. He was like he'd been before, with 4 arms and so very different, but it was still him. Holding desperately onto him the boy cried into the hard metal of his friend.
"H-How... I...I don't understand.", Will looked up, still quite the mess, but his relief was now a bit stronger than his urge to press himself into the other one. But he couldn't let go entirely, the fear of imagining the whole thing was too vivid. Robot pressed one of his claws against Will's lips as if to stop him from forming any more words. And after one short exchange of many chaotic dancing dots of light and one pretty confused pair of blue eyes, this strange moment was gone. But the boy could still feel this strangely fuzzy connection, his whole torso was prickling with warmth from it, similar to his first experience in which Robot and he himself had witnessed together the alien's memories, even though without the horror he'd felt while watching his friend killing all those people...
The alien was lifting the boy up, pressing him possessively onto his own body as if this was a direct reaction to Will's dark trail of thoughts. Will felt a strong wave of regret, he felt sadness. And then it hit him without any warning. He saw himself with tears in his eyes, he heard himself voicing the order to walk past the edge... Then he saw the cliff and seconds after that he was falling -hopelessness and agony tearing him apart even before hitting the ground... Blinking Will couldn't stand to look up.
"...I...I'm so sorry..:"
He felt a soft touch onto his head. Robot was sorry, too. He knew. Somehow he knew it. Their connection was different than before. A small part was concerned about that fact but the majority was overwhelmed with joy. If this was the way how things were now, it would mean that they could understand each other way better than before. The closer they were the fewer was the chance for such a disaster to happen again. Nothing shall stand in between them again. He won't allow it.
Will shivered as he was carried out of his cell out into the cold foreign corridor. He could sense that his friend was raising his own body temperature now, probably to keep him from freezing and Will couldn't stop himself from smiling happily despite their current situation. He remembered their time at the cave and realization hit him.
"Robinsons stick together...", he said while reaching for the face of his friend, desperate on catching his attention. His lights were now more purple than blue, Will was not sure what that meant, but he felt that Robot was a bit confused. But there was hope, too. Fragile and careful, but Will sensed it nevertheless. His smile got even wider.
"You are definitely one of us."
Will shook his head as he got that Robot was still unsure, not ready to believe what he said to be true. The boy ignored his own hurt, he understood perfectly well how hard it was to trust again...quickly deciding to act he struggled to be able to press his forehead softly against his friend.
"We may be different and...we have much yet to learn, but...we'll manage.", at the end he couldn't stop to cry yet again. More than ever as he got that Robot was overwhelmed. He felt the wish of his alien friend to get just...some kind of confirmation...Something he wasn't able to address. But to his luck, Will was. Sniffing Will put his arms around the long neck of his alien friend.
It took a moment until the robot was also putting his upper arms around the small and squishy human boy a bit firmer. He wasn't good with organics and he couldn't quite get most of their strange behavior, but he'd learned much from this small one. His friend. With his lights in a dark purple glimmer he allowed this moment to last just a bit longer. No danger in their current area identifiable.
Will leaned a bit further into the comforting hug.
"I missed you so much...", he murmured against the torso of his friend, too embarrassed to look up.
Now he was truly safe. They would rescue his parents and sisters and together they would find a way to leave this place again.
Everything would be fine now.