Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I honestly think you’re over-thinking it.” Pin-Lee wasn’t buying into Ratthi over dramatizing things this time.
It was cosy sitting with Ratthi in his apartment listening to some new music from the recent festival and enjoying some very pleasant wine.
She was curled in her usual place on his daybed, her shoes kicked off and her toes covered with one of his many soft throws. He had made them some delicious nibbles too. He really was a good friend.

She tried to get things clear; “Gurathin has been helping Three acclimatize? He is honestly probably the best person, he knows the CR better than any of us, he’s augmented, he has even worked with SecUnits in the past hasn’t he? I mean, with normal SecUnits: not our SecUnit.”

Ratthi considered saying that their SecUnit was normal, but the more they found out about Three and the CR the more they were finding that their SecUnit was actually rather special; special in a good way Ratthi added in his mind.

“Gurathin has been spending practically all his free time with Three.” he said.

Pin-Lee looked at Ratthi, “Are you jealous?” She was joking, she’d known Ratthi long enough to know of all the many personality flaws, or rather quirks, he possessed; jealousy was not one. Ratthi surprised her by looking just slightly (and only very briefly) guilty.
“It’s just that Gurathin, well: you know Gurathin?”

Pin-Lee was now actually intrigued.
“Yes? I’ve known him almost as long as you have? He’s brilliant and very funny, I am extremely fond of him. He is quite reserved, I didn’t think he liked me when we first met. But he’s actually one of the first people I’d think to turn to, if I really needed someone I could rely on. Present company excepted, obviously. I do trust him, absolutely.”
She had almost added something about “not for hugs, obviously”; but that brought up the whole hugs with Ratthi thing; which while absolutely fine was not a conversation for right now.

Pin-Lee realised that under his usual cheerful and flirtatious manner, Ratthi was looking genuinely worried. Was there in fact something she should have been worrying about?
The whole situation with the kidnapping, and then the other abductions, and the alien tech and SecUnit almost dying (again) and their meeting Perihelion and its crew had been pretty overwhelming. To say nothing of the paperwork involved.
Poor Ratthi has been thrown into the thick of it, and had already (she knew) had to have intensive counseling.
And then they’d all come back, safely thank the stars; then practically immediately (it seemed) SecUnit had set off again, leaving them with a lot of unanswered questions and...Three.
Pin-Lee had worked on Three’s legal status and paperwork. Pin-Lee wasn’t sure if she should admire the “University’s” ability to “find” the appropriate documents with remarkably useful and absolutely unforgeable time stamps; or whether she should be trying to burn the whole place down and then salt the (metaphorical) ground it used to stand on. She was glad they were friends and allies; she didn’t like to think of the alternative, though she had.

Three itself was a surprise. It was not like their SecUnit. It was far calmer, less spiky. But it shared that sense of...Pin-Lee struggled to find a word for it which didn’t sound negative: nihilism? Their SecUnit seemed to now have found a purpose, with Perihelion (though, Pin-Lee thought, that was a whole other thing; a relationship that made most of even her own look lacking in drama); but since they’d first met SecUnit on that terrifying survey Pin-Lee remembered she’d mostly felt afraid not of it, but for it. Pin-Lee knew she had a streak of self-destructiveness. She upbraided herself, it was stupid to make such facile comparisons.

“I’m just worried that... Look, Gurathin is trying to set things right with Three. He’s convinced SecUnit is never going to forgive him for what he still seems to see as his betrayal. And you know how he feels about SecUnit.”

Pin-Lee wasn’t sure she did. She thought about Gurathin and SecUnit. He had come up with the idea for the “emergency exit kit” for it. He’d made the fake IDs. He’d actually saved its life on TranRollinHyfa, frantically working to get that manual release to work. She knew that Ratthi teased him (and it) about their “private feed”. But Ratthi teased everyone; and flirted with everyone. Going right back to the start; Gurathin had been the one who’d spotted something different about SecUnit in the first place. She did remember thinking he’d clearly paid it more attention than the rest of them. She’d put that down to his previous CR experiences.

“You are not trying to tell me that Gurathin is..”
No, she wasn’t even going to say it.

“No.” Ratthi rubbed his face, “Well, not like that. Gurathin doesn’t feel that way about anyone.”
Pin-Lee thought there was slightly more heat in that last word than she’d expected; she wondered if she’d been underestimating, or misinterpreting this situation in more ways than one.

Ratthi shook his head, as if trying to clear it.
“Gurathin really cares about SecUnit...”
“Again: No.” He interrupted her before she got the chance to even start. “I know we all do, and I know how infuriating Mensah found it when people got it so wrong about her, and their (he did the air quotes and put un-Ratthi-like venom into the word) ‘relationship’. But Gurathin is, if anything, even more attached; and SecUnit was close to him; and they seemed to be getting closer. Then suddenly there was all this, and now SecUnit has gone and Three is here.”

“What does Gurathin say? You’ve spoken to him?”

Ratthi sighed, “We don’t seem to be able to talk about it without getting ridiculously emotional.” An emotional Gurathin wasn’t an image Pin-Lee was finding it easy to conjure, something Ratthi apparently read in her expression. He did at least smile, “I get emotional, it all comes out wrong and Gurathin acts like an asshole; pretending he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.”
Pin-Lee did feel some sympathy for Gurathin.

“And Three?”
“Three is just politely confused and helpful. It is still trying to understand the way relationships work. It thinks Gurathin is great, which he is. He is being a fantastic mentor, and he’s making sure Three gets some really solid, sort of emotional foundations? A sort of 101 in “feelings and how to deal with them”. He’s better at it than you’d expect; it’s ironic really.”

Pin-Lee again was feeling she was missing something.
“So...what’s the problem? Gurathin and Three, they’re OK?”

“Well, yes, but: well, I think Gurathin may be over-compensating for what happened with SecUnit. But I think that’s understandable, and I am probably grown up enough to cope.”
So Ratthi was jealous, Pin-Lee actually hadn’t expected that. She’d always sort of taken Ratthi and Gurathin’s relationship for granted.

She reached over and squeezed his hand.
“So: Three’s OK? Gurathin, whilst possibly neglecting his wonderful, caring and incredibly gorgeous platonic best friend, is also OK? You’re OK? What’s the problem?”

Ratthi poured them both another glass of wine, it was really good wine, she was sad to note the bottle was now empty.

“You know about SecUnit’s tags? The last time it almost died, or was it the time before that? I lose track...” Pin-Lee threw him a look and he winced theatrically, “When it was coming back online it kept trying to remember who we all were. It was very sure about a few things: that I’m its friend and that it doesn’t like Gurathin. You’re,” Ratthi, who had been pacing, raised his glass and bowed to Pin-Lee “actually tagged as a CombatUnit, by the way; which I think is a compliment. But SecUnit also, and I didn’t realise this until later, had Perihelion and Gurathin tagged together: I mean they are indeed both assholes. But it’s more than that. SecUnit “doesn’t like Gurathin”. It’s an interesting tag, don’t you think? SecUnit is always, and I mean always, very adamant it doesn’t care what Gurathin thinks.” Ratthi took a breath, “But it is always very keen to know what that is, so that it can then make sure not care about it.”

Pin-Lee allowed the sense of those last two sentences to slot into place.

“SecUnit is back in ten days, and whilst Three is definitely OK, Gurathin is OK and I am mostly OK, I am quite sure SecUnit will be pretty fucking far from OK.”

This was genuinely not something that had occurred to Pin-Lee as a possibility.
“You think SecUnit, our SecUnit, is going to be jealous of Gurathin and Three?”

There was a pause in the music, leading to this statement sounding way more dramatic than she’d intended. Ratthi looked down at the table, walked over to one of the small cupboards, returned with a short, squat stoppered bottle and two small heavy glasses. He put them down on the table, sat next to Pin-Lee and poured two shots. He passed one to her.

“Yes. I am quietly confident this is exactly what will happen, and it’s more a question of how we prepare for it.”

“But what do you think SecUnit will do?” Pin-Lee was genuinely finding it difficult to wrap her head around this concept.

Ratthi grinned, downed his shot, flinched slightly, “Going on past experience of SecUnit dealing with unfamiliar and uncomfortable emotions? Probably go and get itself blasted to pieces and almost killed. Or lock itself in a bathroom. Or both.”

Pin-Lee downed her shot, and passed her glass to Ratthi for a refill. “Harsh,” she said “harsh but fair.”

Pin-Lee looked at the glass Ratthi had poured for her. As if reading her mind he said, “Don’t worry, I have the spare bed made up; I will make sure you drink lots of water; I have analgesics for tomorrow; and yes, I will carry you there and tuck you in if necessary.”
He was so kind and thoughtful, and knew her so well; Pin-Lee did sometimes wish she didn’t feel quite so...well, so sisterly towards him.

She downed the shot:
“So what’s the plan, Mr Relationships?”

Chapter Text

Pin-Lee went into the kitchen to pick up the message from Gurathin, she was already pulling on her clothes. It was, as his messages usually were, curt:
“I have a SecUnit locked in my bathroom. Ratthi says you’ll understand.”

She met Ratthi outside Gurathin’s apartment.
“I don’t know any more than you! He didn’t want to put anything more than necessary over the feed.” He was whispering. Pin-Lee wondered why. SecUnit would, inevitably, have drones out here in the corridor. Some of the ones Mensah had bought it were so tiny there would be no way they’d spot them in the dim lighting of the corridor. Whispering wasn’t going to cut it.
She knocked on Gurathin’s door. Had he always had such a low tech entrance to his apartment? Or was this a “life since SecUnit” thing; she knew some of the more security inclined (yes, read paranoid) members of the community had taken to stripping out anything which might be “borrowed” by a SecUnit, no matter how transiently. Thinking back to before though, she reckoned it was probably just Gurathin being Gurathin.
He opened the door.
“It growled at Three.”

Ratthi peered past Gurathin into the room, “Where is Three?”
“It left, it said it was OK...” Gurathin sounded very puzzled, with just a hint of anger “What is going on? I’ve never heard a SecUnit make that noise before?”

Growled? Ratthi was grudgingly impressed at Gurathin’s calmness. He wondered if any of SecUnit’s drones had caught the scene, before realizing that (of course) that piece of data would be thoroughly wiped and scrubbed out of existence. Wait, did Gurathin’s augments record data?

Pin-Lee was walking Gurathin back into the room. She was, as always, struck at how beautiful Gurathin’s apartment was. People often expected it to be almost monk-like, an ascetic’s cell. But Gurathin had the most beguiling taste in interior decor, she always loved the rare occasions he’d invited her round. His geological collection was displayed cleverly, artistically, and most of all playfully. Everything was implicitly labeled “please do touch”. Several of the rocks (Gurathin knew all the proper names, Pin-Lee had given some nick-names) had fossils and others unusual properties (the fluorescent ones looked particularly other worldly).

The whole apartment was almost ridiculously cosy and welcoming. She could smell some of the herbs, and subtle scents of others of the many plants he grew, which formed a sort of living sculpture; and hear the very gentle sound of one of the water features. She knew all this beauty took a lot of effort and maintenance, and above all time, on his part; such effort was the only reason, really, that most living areas didn’t look more like this.
It was an oasis, usually of calm.

She could see where Gurathin and Three must have been sitting, there was an interface and a cup of coffee next to one indentation on the sofa, still visible; and another much deeper indentation (SecUnits were heavy) next to it, and marks in the deep pile of carpet: yes of course Three must have been barefoot.
She imagined the scenario from the point of view of an intruder. Intruder; it was an awful word, but she knew why it had sprung to mind.
Gurathin and Three, sat close together. They must have been close enough to be almost touching; Three wasn’t touch averse was it? Gurathin was the more like SecUnit in that manner.

“It pinged me from right outside the door, I wasn’t expecting them back for another couple of days; I just told it to come in.” Gurathin was right, they hadn’t been due back for two more cycles, that was odd.

“I told you this would happen.” Ratthi started...
“Wait.” Gurathin held his hands up gently, “That’s not quite true.”
“I did.”
“Ratthi, you kept telling me I was spending too much time with Three; it was getting to the point that any time we spent together seemed to revolve about you telling me I wasn’t spending enough time with you. Not everything is about you. I don’t complain when you go off on your adventures.”

“Sounds as if you’re complaining right now.”

“Oh stop it!”
That was Pin-Lee. She could see why these conversations hadn’t gone well. Poor Gurathin. Ratthi was so lovely, but he could be emotionally exhausting at times.

“Ratthi, you’ve got the file we put together? Gurathin, is SecUnit talking? Can you reach it on the feed?”
She briefly glanced around the room, which she realised could have hundreds of drones squirreled away in the foliage and amongst the geology.
Gurathin looked inwardly, accessing the feed, he smiled. Then frowned.
“Three sends you and Ratthi its regards.” He said to Pin-Lee.
“SecUnit seems to have blocked me. Which is childish.”
He’d clearly had the same thought about the drones, since the last part was addressed both to her and the room at large.

Ratthi went over to the bathroom door and knocked gently.
“SecUnit? Could you let me in.”

“Just you.”

The door opened just wide enough for Ratthi to slip through. Then closed again.

“Ratthi said you two had a plan?”
“Ratthi was concerned...”
“Ratthi can be extremely presumptuous.”
“He was right.”
“I honestly didn’t expect this.”

Pin-Lee wondered. Gurathin was obviously quite shocked, but he had (she realised Three would have a recording of the whole thing, relationships 101? this was slightly out of that remit, she hoped Three really was OK, Gurathin was clearly checking in on it) just witnessed what amounted to a stand off between two SecUnits. Pin-Lee remembered when Mensah had gone head to head with SecUnit (not literally, even Gurathin was a little too short for that), it had been terrifying. And SecUnit hadn’t actually growled.
So Gurathin hadn’t expected “this”, what had he expected?

“So, what exactly is Ratthi’s plan?”
Pin-Lee explained.
Gurathin went and sat down and buried his face in his hands. He wasn’t one for the dramatic displays of emotions, Pin-Lee didn’t want to say anything more in case it tipped him over whatever emotional edge he seemed balanced on.
“That,” he finally said “is a terrible idea.”

Pin-Lee felt she had to defend Ratthi here.
“It’s the best idea we could come up with. You know how invested SecUnit is in that show...”

“I don’t even want to know which characters, do I? Of all the shows. Have you even watched Sanctuary Moon?”
Pin-Lee had actually, up until that evening seven days ago, watched hardly any of it. She was aware of it in general terms. Everyone was. You couldn’t avoid that. Some of the individual episodes had reached almost legendary status. She had the soundtrack from the musical episode, but she tended to listen to that when she was extremely unlikely to be disturbed. It was a good sound track when you were in the mood to break something.

Gurathin was looking at her, which story arcs had they decided on in the end? Considering the sheer number of episodes there had been surprisingly little to choose from, in Sanctuary Moon very few relationships seemed to be allowed to remain platonic.
“Shurin and Eisen, they actually span over three hundred episodes.”

Gurathin’s expression hardened; woah! Who’s metaphorically growling now.
“Until they get killed off? And they are almost spectacularly boring.”
Pin-Lee raised an eyebrow at Gurathin, she didn’t remember him ever mentioning he’d followed the show.
“There was huge pressure from some” Gurathin paused, choosing his words carefully, “fans to give them a romance; I suppose killing them off was a mercy. Dare I ask who else?”

“We were trying to find arcs that dealt with non-romantic (you don’t have to wince, thought Pin-Lee, I am trying here) jealousy. It’s actually pretty stupid how few characters in media are shown as experiencing it.”
And sitting watching (how many episodes were there of this monster?) Sanctuary Moon with Ratthi, Pin-Lee had become increasingly irritated at the way characters were seemingly not allowed to simply be friends. She had several friends she would die for, friends she loved far more deeply than her physical lovers (though there was, she would be first to admit, a certain degree of overlap between those groups).

Pin-Lee knew that non-sexual jealousy was absolutely normal, why on earth did humans seem to have such an issue with having their fictional characters express it?

“Did you at least include De-Sontis and Eden?”
Before Pin-Lee could answer that, Gurathin seemed to make his mind up.
“I’m going to have to watch this thing, aren’t I?”

Gurathin waved his hand and a large display sprang into life. Oh, thought Pin-Lee, that was something new.

He checked and readied the file, “Please do come and sit down, Pin-Lee.” He glared at a plant, which certainly didn’t deserve it. “Everyone is very welcome to watch it in comfort.”

Pin-Lee shot a look at the resolutely closed bathroom door.

Chapter Text

Ratthi had, to give him credit, done a pretty neat job of editing the various bits of video together. The music he’d chosen came from his personal media collection; he had resisted most of Pin-Lee’s more cynical suggestions.

It had taken them a long time to make. After the first, drunken, evening they’d spent many far more sober hours together.
On first meeting him Ratthi could seem a bit emotionally unbridled, Pin-Lee found he sometimes put her in mind of an over-enthusiastic puppy, but he had taken this very seriously. And so, she realised, had Pin-Lee. It was a ridiculous thing they were putting together; but it was for a situation which no one had a handy guidebook for. On the plus side, there was absolutely no way they could actually get this right; there was no “right”. On the downside, its audience was unlikely to hold back with their critique.

Sanctuary Moon WAS terrible, but at the same time magnificent. As Pin-Lee had watched, and helped, Ratthi pull out the plot threads he wanted from enormous tapestry of the whole she had become, initially grudgingly, impressed.
It was, for the vast majority of its hundreds, now thousands (and counting), of episodes the media equivalent of that highly processed food so beloved in the CR. But...but...she’d picked out a legal plot line out of the sticky morass; she had expected, quite reasonably, that it’d be the usual utter fuckwittery. Instead, to her disbelief, it had contained a valuable grain of...well, not truth (this was a legal plot line) that...Ratthi had noticed what had so seized her attention, “Yes, that bit caused some controversy at the time. The Pansystem University actually has a couple of theses on its effect on what passes as ‘employment law’, corporates were less than happy; but the SM legal team is shit hot, they usually know exactly what they can and can’t get away with.” Ratthi looked briefly grim, “Usually.”

For the great majority it was all as ridiculous and overblown, as risible and histrionic as she had expected. And some of the special effects, including that bit with the large elasmobranch-like creature, were quite rightfully infamous.
But under that (thick and glittery) carapace, no, more like beetle elytra of melodrama it was occasionally as subversive as hell. And it had a soft heart.

How on earth was this getting out, playing on literally millions of screens all over the Corporate Rim? Talk about hiding in plain sight.

Of course it was still pretty deficient for what they wanted from it, but Ratthi had been right: it was the best possible source.

The file, completed, was 76 minutes and 38 seconds long.

Selected story lines from Sanctuary Moon played out across the screen. Pin-Lee kept finding her eyes drawn to Gurathin’s face.

After almost 23 minutes she heard the door of the bathroom open, and Ratthi slipped over and gently slid onto the sofa next to her. He put his arms around her waist and buried his face into her hair. He made a shhhhing noise.
Pin-Lee sensed, rather than saw or heard, SecUnit move into the room and stand facing the corner.

76 minutes and 36 seconds can be a very long time.

It struck Pin-Lee that for SecUnit it would seem a whole lot longer. Subjectively, she wondered if Gurathin actually found it longest of all. At the end Gurathin gestured the screen away. The sound of the water and three people breathing (one person made no sound at all) was broken by Gurathin.
“Well,” he said, “That was truly horrible. Thank you both.”

SecUnit’s gentle, slightly melodic voice came next, “Some of the music was enjoyable. But Gurathin is correct, that was truly horrible and I never want to watch it again.”

Pin-Lee felt finally able to look at SecUnit. She hadn’t seen it in such a long time. It looked different; its hair was actually cut in a style now, she wondered whose idea that had been. Did she detect Iris’ hand there? Its clothes were still utilitarian, but there were little touches which showed more care was being taken about how they looked, not just the job they did. How much of that was down to Perihelion?
SecUnit’s face was the same as always, such a gentle and open face. It was looking at Gurathin.

Gurathin was still gazing at a spot in the air, he took a deep breath and let it out again.
“Ratthi, I am sorry. I have not been a good friend recently and you have every right to be cross with me. Pin-Lee, you...” He actually seemed to be finding it hard to find the words, he reached over and briefly held her hand, “you must think I am a complete idiot.”

“You are an idiot.”

“Thank you, SecUnit. I wasn’t actually asking you.”

“You can call me Murderbot, you idiot.”

SecUnit glanced at Pin-Lee then Ratthi, making fleeting eye-contact.
“I hope you’re not expecting us to hug.”

Pin-Lee snorted, and she could actually feel Ratthi grinning. “Are you sure?” He jumped to his feet and pulled Pin-Lee up. “Look, we should go. You two probably need to...to not hug? Sit around in silence and stare at rocks, or whatever you do for fun when we’re not here.”

“Silence is good. But Ratthi? Murderbot was right about the music. I think some of it came from that concert at Makeba Hall? The original recording of the musical media from the time stamp 22 minutes 46, do you have that on a separate file?”

Later, Ratthi and Pin-Lee walked arm into arm along one of the many raised walkways; looking down at the trees, lit with strands of lights. Ratthi was clearly feeling very pleased with himself. Pin-Lee thought they were actually both a little drunk on relief.
“22 minutes and 46! Told you so...”

“De-Sontis and Eden.”

Pin-Lee gazed towards the dock area, there was some sort of light show going on; she turned to face Ratthi, “We did OK, didn’t we?” Ratthi was looking towards the docks too, “They’ll probably not be talking to each by tomorrow. But at least they’ll both be glowering from a position of greater emotional honesty.” His face crinkled into a look of curiosity, and just a little concern, “What the hell is going on over there?”