Work Text:
“You sure you’re, like, okay?” Lizzy questioned after the WDF left in shame, leaving Thad, Doll, and herself alone in the storage room. Doll was standing a bit further away, but she still seemed concerned for her friend despite the distant look on her face.
“Totally! Never, ugh, felt better.” Thad groaned out, slouching forward slightly. Oil still seeped through the wound V’s claws left on his stomach.
“[I found these.]” Doll muttered, handing Lizzy a roll of bandages.
“Oh, thanks. Here.” Lizzy held them out to Thad, who took them with a nod and pained grin. “You need help putting those on?”
“Nope! It shouldn’t be too hard. Thanks, though.”
“...Alright.” Lizzy sighed out. Truthfully, she was a bit thankful Thad was so insistent on dismissing them so she could check on Doll in private.
After the two left, Thad pocketed the bandages and walked over to where Uzi dropped her railgun, picking it up and glancing at the oil smear on the floor.
“Heh, now there’s two.” Thad joked, before realizing that J’s corpse was gone. “Oh, that’s not good. Should ask N about that when I go to return this to Uzi.”
The wound can wait, after all! He’ll be fine. He’ll go see Uzi and her new friend, N the cannibalistic serial killer who craves oil.
It was pretty easy to get out of the Base, not that Thad minded. The hard part was figuring out just where N, Uzi, and the third one was. Thad glanced down, checking for footprints, before remembering N flew out the Base and likely back to wherever the trio was stationed. However…
“Faint bootprints. Must be Uzi’s.” Thad attempted to crouch down for a better view, but it just made their wound ache. “Ow…”
Following the tracks eventually led him to a tall spiral made of Drone corpses, red lights peering all around. They were about to enter it when they heard voices coming from nearby.
“Uzi! N!” Thad called as he approached, stopping Uzi in whatever rant she was going on. She seemed rather embarrassed about it. “Got your-”
Thad was cut off by N snapping her attention to him, one of her eyes turning to a X. In an instant, she was standing over them, tail wagging, drooling.
“N, the hell is your deal?!” Uzi called, somewhat snapping N out of her partial hunting mode. She turned to Uzi with a sheepish grin.
“He smells heavily of oil… and I’m hungry.”
“You ate that WDF guy not that long ago!” Uzi dragged N away from Thad, who had to take a moment to recover from the scare. “Though… Thad, are you bleeding?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. One of N’s murder-friends got me with their claws. Hurt, but I’ll be fine.” Thad held out the bandages.
“You almost got mauled.” Uzi commented. “Why would you come out here with an open wound like that? If I wasn’t here to stop N, you’d be scrap metal right now.”
“Well, I didn’t know they hunted oil specifically like that.” Thad pointed out. Right. Uzi only learned that from N herself telling her.
“If you’re Uzi’s friend, I could heal you.” N offered, having calmed herself down enough to behave around a wounded Worker.
“I thought you said you could only heal nanite acid wounds like my hand injury.”
“Mainly, yeah, but I can heal really any wound.” N shrugged, tail twitching. Thad glanced between the two.
“How do you go about this?”
“I had to stick my entire hand into her mouth.” Uzi sighed. She’d really rather never think about that ever again, but she liked Thad and it was probably the quickest way to inform him about the ability.
“What?”
“Her spit is what heals- just listen.”
“I’ll just be licking you for clarification.” N stepped closer, giving Thad a nod. “Only if you want, of course.”
“Please. I am in pain, bro.” No point in denying literal full healing, no matter how slobbery it was apparently going to be.
Uzi sat down on a nearby broken car, leaving N and Thad in the snow together. N directed Thad to lay down after removing his tattered shirt and jacket.
“S’bit awkward, is it not?” Thad nervously smiled as N sat down in the snow beside them, her tail curling around the two. The sharp, oil-stained needle was unnerving, but the soft yellow glow of the nanite acid was comforting. Odd.
“Nah, not really. I’ve healed a lot of wounds by now.” Most of those were her own, but that’s besides the point.
N leaned over, smooth snout splitting open. Sharp, oil stained teeth were visible for a moment, before she readjusted herself, and a forked, yellow tongue flicked out. She began licking the wound covering Thad’s stomach, pausing occasionally to lap up the oil as a little treat, but focused on healing.
“Heh- that tickles a little…” Thad twitched beneath N’s grip, though did their best to stay still. He could feel her hot breath on his body… was he blushing?
As Thad noticed N’s extra eyes looking over to him, he turned his head away, in an attempt to hide when they could barely move.
“You’re just getting hotter, you know.” N teased between licks. Thad didn’t respond, though a smile crossed his face as he looked back down to N.
“Are you two done yet?” Uzi called, getting rather bored of sitting around.
“Almost!” N responded, her tail moving itself to be closer to Thad. “There you go, all healed up! Now, I can’t do anything about your clothes. I’d recommend just getting new ones.”
“Ah, thanks…” Thad muttered, slipping the torn clothes back on for when he returned to the Base. “For the healing. And not eating me.”
“A friend of Uzi’s is a friend of mine!” N grinned, standing up. Once up, she assisted Thad in getting up as well.
“And I don’t have many of those.” Uzi huffed, walking over. “Now, was there a reason you came all the way out here spilling oil, or…?”
“Oh, right. I got your railgun from storage.” Thad dug in the nearby snow for where they dropped it. “N, about your murder-friend’s corpse…”