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Language:
English
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Published:
2025-08-25
Completed:
2025-08-27
Words:
1,453
Chapters:
2/2
Comments:
29
Kudos:
71
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398

ART discovers April Fools

Summary:

Peri, having just discovered something called April Fools: *chuckles maniacally*

AKA ART has a field day designing specialty clothing for its crew, much to Murderbot's utter dismay.

Notes:

The crew in this story is a mashup of some of my favorite members from both Preservation and Perihelion. Please enjoy the crackest of all my crackfics, which had me laughing hysterically all weekend.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

I hate planets. At this point I think it’s established, but I have yet to meet a planet that I actually enjoyed being on. This mission was no exception. It was a mixed crew on this mission with Iris, Seth, Martyn, and Tarik from ART’s crew, and Ratthi, Gurathin and I from Preservation. The mission, well- It had a 90% survival rating, but it went about as badly as it could have. It was a mess, a success, but a very fiery mess. It was with a tinge of sadness that I put my charred clothes in the recycler. I really liked those pants, they had some great pockets. It wasn’t until I reached over to grab my new shirt that I realized something was wrong.

Pinging ART’s feed, I asked, “ART… What did you do to my clothes?”

“There’s a custom I learned about on this planet that I thought we could indulge in,” it replied, barely tamping down its proud amusement.

The torso of the shirt I had pulled on was too short in every dimension. Instead of my preferred long sleeve shirt with the adaptation for my energy weapons in my arms, the shirt was short sleeve, and more horrifically than that, the torso stopped almost 6 inches above where a normal shirt would lay, my entire torso left visible. To my absolute confusion and dismay, the shirt had words :

Welcome to the Gun Show

(my arms are literal guns)

I picked up the pair of pants that were underneath, to see the words Perihelion’s Bitches also written in bold white text down the leg.

“ART WHAT THE FUCK!” I yelled. It was the only reasonable response in this situation. It had ruined what could have been perfectly decent clothes.

“Yes?”

“Why??? I want my clothes the way they should be.” After months of trying slightly different fits of clothes, I had finally found clothes I liked.

“Unfortunately all the materials that will be used in order to create another set of clothes will need to go through the full recycling treatment. New clothes will be ready for you in two days."

“I’m not wearing this.”

“I don’t see that you have any other choice,” ART replied smugly through our feed.

My performance reliability dropped to 98%. I could wear the clothes. I could. But I felt a wave of I don't care wash over me, and yeah. That works for me.

“You know what, if I can’t have clothes I like, everyone is going to suffer, you fuck.” I intentionally tossed both of the items of clothing on the floor then walked out of the bathroom and straight to the crew lounge. 

I immediately messaged Pin-Lee through the feed to have her add a clause about clothing slogans to the subsection on logos of my standing work contract.

Whatever this custom is that ART found? Apparently I wasn’t the only victim. 

It seemed like everyone in the crew lounge was wearing the same pants I had been given, but each person had their own special shirt. Gurathin’s said SecUnit’s Favorite Human, which fuck no, that should be Ratthi’s. For some cursed reason, Ratthi’s shirt said Ping Me, Daddy. Seth and Martyn had the most normal shirts, both said Space Dad and had a hand sigil with a thumbs up. The four of them were sitting together at the long crew table, either eating or working on tech. All but Gurathin looked up when I walked in, a flicker of surprise registering across their faces.

“I- I hate this,” I said, addressing no one in particular as I went to sit down on a chair in the corner of the room.

Gurathin nodded. “From what I understand, apparently this planet has a holiday where people play practical jokes on each other, and Perihel-” his voice trailed off as he finally glanced over in my direction.

“Well, that answered a question I never wanted to ask.” Tarik muttered from the doorway, I focused one of my drones on him to see him staring at me wide-eyed, which was… mildly unnerving. His shirt said 7th Best Crew Member. Ha.

At that moment Iris strode past Tarik with a huge smile on her face. Oddly, it was her shirt that said Perihelion’s Bitches, but she wasn’t wearing the same pants as the rest of the crew. She strutted into the room and spun so her back was to everyone, so we all got to read the bold white words Hottest Ass In Space on the shortest shorts I'd ever seen a human wear.

Thankfully, at this point I was tapped into the feed messaging Pin-Lee and explaining the situation, so I was able to avoid reacting to her... entrance. Have I ever mentioned, I hate ART?

“That’s not fair! I like that one!” Ratthi said, pointing at her shorts. “I want shorts like that, Perihelion!”

“Don’t humor it,” I told Ratthi.

“That can be arranged,” ART replied. It was disgusting how pleased it sounded.

Ratthi turned to face me, and blinked before breaking into an almost evil smile. “I mean if we’re doing naked time instead…” He reached down to grab the bottom of his shirt and start lifting it above his head. 

My risk assessment module spiked and I realized I may have made a huge mistake just as Martyn said in a monotone, “Absolutely not, Ratthi.”

“But SecUnit-” Ratthi teased.

“Doesn’t have genitals that none of us consented to see,” Seth finished.

“For the record, I hate that answer,” Tarik said as he prepared a food packet in the heater.

“ART said that it won’t be able to make new clothes for two days. And I refuse to wear what it made me. This will be going into my contract and I’ve already contacted Pin-Lee.” I told them.

“Sounds about right,” Gurathin muttered.

“Three didn’t leave you it’s armour, did it?” Iris asked as she sat down with everyone else.

“It didn’t.” I replied. I had been trying hard to fight the ever-present desire to pull back on the suit. It was comfortable. It was safe. Three had left ART with the rest of Mensah’s crew to return to Preservation, and took its suit with it. 

“I don’t know what’s more intimidating, SecUnit in its armor, or SecUnit naked,” Tarik mused.

“Armour,” Ratthi said, “Trust me.”

I pulled up episode 163 of Sanctuary Moon on my feed and started it up. It was a futile, but desperate effort to forget all this was happening.

 

Three hours later

 

I had returned to my bunk room and was queueing up another episode of Sanctuary Moon when Iris knocked on the door. The novelty of privacy would never get old.

“Come in,” I said, pausing my episode.

Iris took two steps into the room then closed the door. 

“I have a question for you,” she said, then paused. 

I hate when humans do this. It’s such a waste of time.

“Yes?” 

“What were the clothes Peri made you?” she asked with a glint in her eye. “I am just curious how bad they were that you didn’t want to wear them.”

“You could have just asked ART.”

“It refused to tell me what they said and was being sulky about it.”

ART hadn’t told her. Huh. I might as well get this over with, she was almost as tenacious in getting what she wanted as ART was.

“They’re on the floor in the bathroom.” I told her, unpausing my episode and letting it run, but I only let a small portion of my processing power focus on it. I'll admit, I was mildly interested in what Iris’ reaction would be.

“Oh my GOD,” she squealed. “A CROP TOP?!”

“It’s in style,” ART said petulantly through a direct feed between the three of us.

“It’s a little on the nose, Peri. The second line of text? ‘My arms are literal guns?’ is a bit much.”

ART paused for 2.3 seconds. A shockingly long period of time. “I thought SecUnit may find it amusing to be vaguely threatening by just wearing the shirt.”

I did not justify that with a response. The concept that ART may have thought I’d like the motto made me feel an emotion.

“I see why SecUnit wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing it. But I have to say, it would absolutely serve cunt in this crop top,” Iris mused.

I felt myself blink and turned my head slowly towards the bathroom where Iris was standing.

“S-Serve-” I stuttered. There was a 19% drop in my performance reliability.

“It didn’t want one,” ART said matter-of-factly.

“EXCUSE ME, WHAT?” Iris squeaked.

Oh fuck this too. Manual shut down. System delayed restart in 6 hours.

Chapter 2

Summary:

My dearest friend @yearofdoodles on instagram did this fanart based off this fic!!! They have also done other amazing scenes and fanart from the books so absolutely check them out!!!!

Please enjoy <3

Chapter Text

Fanart of Murderbot Wearing the "Welcome to the Gunshow" croptop, with Iris looking at it amused and ART happy in the background

 

 

Notes:

This fic is dedicated to my friend @yearofdoodles on instagram. They dragged me into the murderbot fandom and this fic is the culmination of multiple days of us fucking around headcannon-ing scenes with the characters from this series. They also have some amazing fanart/comics from the series you should check out. If you liked this and want more, please let me know as I have 6 pages of our absolutely insane crack fic scenes/dialogue that I can pull from and theoretically flesh out into full fics (I mean. fics this size probably. Not much larger. I don't trust myself not to abandon a work that takes me more than a weekend to finish.)

The most likely fics I may write would be titled:
The Haircut Incident
Peri’s Collection
And possible a series of fics titled 'We Raised Nightmare Children (Seth and Martyn's memoir: a collection of moments raising Iris and Perihelion)'

I hope that this fic did Murderbot's hyperspecific style of speak/thought/writing justice. I tried very hard.

Have a wonderful week and I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!