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You’ve been monitoring Jake’s heat signature all day. Brobot’s sensors are behaving perfectly, like you knew they would, but you’ve managed to convince yourself they need to be tested regularly for purposes of science, yes science that’s it. Never mind that it also gives you an excuse to keep an eye on English, who statistically has the self-preservation instincts of a lemming on a cliff.
You tap your fingers on the side of your temple, eyes following the beeping blob that is Jake English, all reddish orange and warm blooded in the dense coolness of his island. A jungle, Jake, honestly, who are you Doctor Moreau?
You’ve come to regard English as perhaps the most bewildering, anomalous, devastatingly beautiful creature to ever form out of the primordial ooze, if you both had in fact been sired from said ooze and not a completely different kind of ooze but that’s beside the point.
He’s been sluggish the last hour or so, probably all that running around like an idiot attracting attention from giant monsters and such. So far the cybernetic alert systems hasn’t picked up on any immediate threats, so you sit back and let your mind wander while you fix up some old super conductor bullshit.
When he finally stumbles into his bedroom, where your Brobot (and by extension you) are perched in the window, you turn off the infrared and switch to camera view.
You suck in your breath through your teeth and swear.
He’s all scratched up, battered and bloody. His knees red and raw, his elbows a ruin, his glasses cracked and lip split right beneath his buck teeth. He manages a smile and a wave at you before collapsing on his bed and your heart nearly shatters right there.
You throw on the microphone,
“What the fuck, English, what the everloving FUCK?!”
“Oh it’s nothing to wrack your noggin over, Strider,” he wheezes, his face ruddy and slicked with sweat, “Just had a run in with a nasty tree root and then his extremely irritable brother and then a rather temperamental patch of brambles and a very ornery rock face, quite ornery,”
“Jake I’ve been monitoring you for hours, when did this happen?” You are so angry. So angry and frustrated. How did you not see? How were you not there? You hate yourself a little bit too, because for all the rage your voice is calm and monotone like it always is, and Jake seems to think you’re in on this terrible joke.
“Oh sometime this morning I think? Long before you got up, what with those devilish time zones and all,”
“You’ve been wandering around like this…like this for…” there’s a lump in your throat. You run a hand over your eyes and grit your teeth. This isn’t fair. You’re supposed to protect him from monsters and attackers and ornery fucking rock faces. “I should’ve been there, the Brobot-”
“Dirk, it’s fine,” Jake manages to sit up with a wince and looks you, no - the Brobot, in the eye receptors and point to the first aid kit he keeps by his bed, “Besides isn’t the whole point of your bloody Methuselah of a robot to punch me around until I get tough enough to adventure on my own? Probably it surmised I wasn’t in any life threatening danger and reacted accordingly,”
You listen to all this mutely while the robot, under your influence of course, goes about bandaging up the scrapes on Jake’s arms and legs, touching a cotton swab to his lower lip, all purple and plump, and you wish the Brobot had lips because for one mad, infuriating moment you want to kiss him and dig your nails into his scalp and ORDER him to never go outside again or you will break his stupid hairy legs.
And then it passes and you feel very small and empty.
“Anyway, I know I have nothing to worry over,” Jake smiles again, that awful wonderful lopsided smile that he gets where his nose crinkles and he scratches behind his ear, “I have you to watch out for me, Strider, I couldn’t ask for a better friend.”
You bite your lip and Brobot’s arms, up to now acting so delicately, shudder and freeze. You lay your head down on the surface of your desk, your eyes closed and your heart aching. You hear Jake’s voice over the microphone,
“Strider? Dirk? You uh…did you lose the connection or…”
“I’m here.” You manage to squeeze out, all the while the word friend echoes around in your head like a consolation prize. Oh aren’t you so happy? The judges of romance and heartache whisper in your ears, You might not get to be with him but he couldn’t ask for a better friend.
“No fuck that,” you whisper.
“Dirk? What’d you say, I can’t figure out how to work this bloody contraption,”
“I’m no runner up,” you say to no one, to everyone, to yourself, “I’m going for gold.”
You turn on the camera again and Jake is up close against the robot’s sunglass sensors, his green eyes wide and questioning.
“Am I supposed to reset the bloody thing or-” He doesn’t get to finish because Brobot has him in a chokehold.
“English you listen up, I’m keeping an eye on you from here on out. You stay away from freaking tree roots and rock faces or so help me I will throttle you right here, you got that?”
“YES YES, GOOD GOD LET GO DIRK!” he squeals, though you can hear laughter and only a little fear underneath that.
You do so.
“Cripes Mr. Strider, you really do care don’t you?” he manages to chuckle, patting the robot’s chassis affectionately.
You smile. Leaning back in your chair you begin formulating a brilliant, complicated and potentially dangerous plan to get Jake English to kiss you on the mouth.
“Damn straight, Mr. English, damn straight.”