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“It hurts.” Titan TV said, and pressed their chest, under the ring of armour surrounding their core. “I think some dust got in and I can feel it grating as my core spins.”
The TVwoman patted their shoulder. She was sitting on their shoulder, so that was patting the surface under her. They still felt her, and felt the pat distinctly even though it was tiny. “There can’t be. It won’t operate if the seal’s broken,” she reassured. “You’d switch to reserve power and you’d see a huge alert banner like this.” She traced an imaginary rectangle with her palm and, like the pat, Titan TV could feel it and scaled the sensation up to pretend it was bigger and pretend their matriarch was big enough to rub their shoulders. “Are you sure it feels like grating?” she asked them.
Focusing on the ache, the titan tried to describe it exactly - maybe with a little exaggeration for good measure. “Something’s sticking and the cylinders feel like they’re struggling to turn. It feels like it’s an effort to generate power and it would be easier to give up and lie down.”
“Oh, I understand.” The TVwoman walked across her titan’s shoulder, pressing and sliding her feet into the slightly yielding material of their coat to make sure they could feel her. When she reached Titan TV’s collar, she teleported the short distance to a horizontal strut inside, within reach of cables that dropped down into the inner walls of their chest. She pushed into the wiring, if they’d both been the same size and their anatomy allowed for it, she’d be nuzzling her titan’s neck. “Can I plug in?”
Titan TV hummed and nodded, wondering how the TVwoman would perceive the vibration and movement. The only thing they could imagine as a comparison would be if their hangar could respond to them with a purr. She wasn’t troubled, and didn’t stop, embracing a warm cable with a rubbery soft thermal sheath and removing her glove to stroke it. “Ready?” she asked.
It would have been nice if she didn’t need to ask, Titan TV thought, and didn’t know whether that would be a strange thing to tell her. It felt secure to know that she had a special connector hidden in her palm and that if something really was wrong, she could access her titan’s systems to take a calmer look over diagnostic data they could have missed or even directly command their subconscious. It was oddly appealing to imagine it might be serious enough that their matriarch would need to command them to stand down for repairs. Then they wouldn’t be able to do anything else for a bit, and would just have to accept care (and a few snuggles, no doubt) from their favourite engineers. So Titan TV didn’t say anything, exactly, but hummed again.
There was no sensation, the TVwoman’s needle-like device could bypass her titan’s sensors and cause them no pain. Titan TV didn’t feel anything of the connection at all until they became aware of their condition data from the last few minutes being accessed. They didn’t have a sensory association for that, and wanted to imagine it as a ghostly ribbon being gently unrolled and pulled from them. Something immediately felt a little better, and their core mechanism seemed to spin easier.
Maybe the TVwoman was able to run debugging programs that she hadn’t revealed, or was even controlling the motion herself?
“Well, I can’t see anything wrong,” she said, and Titan TV was surprised. She continued, “But you need an early bedtime and overnight monitoring, an engineer should spend tonight with you in case the fault reveals itself. Choose someone you love.”
“I suppose I am feeling tired…” Titan TV touched their own arms, and stroked their subscreens. “I want you.”
“I love you too. I can be there, but an engineer needs to be involved. Just in case.” The TVwoman leaned against the cable, pressing her screen against the warm surface. There were soft places inside the titan, if one knew where to look. But Titan TV couldn’t really feel her touch here, there were no sensors in the cable’s sheath. Through interoceptive systems, they sensed how she was moving, and could sense the connection they shared in a way that was both nonphysical and encompassed their whole body.
But that wasn’t the same. “I only want you,” Titan TV insisted. “Why don’t you give me what I want?” The distance was frustrating, that the only way they could actually touch their matriarch when she was literally in their body was indirectly through vibrating the air. They rumbled, almost a purr, although they didn’t quite feel comforted enough for it to be a real one.
“Because you’re behaving erratically as well as reporting discomfort. I want you to come home and be safe.” The TVwoman was transmitting her speech, because the titan had no audio sensors inside themself. They couldn’t touch or hear her, she might as well be miles away.
Titan TV looked around, as well as they could, at the sea and surrounding cliffs obscured by spray and heavy rain. They were cold and wet, their lower body was spattered with salt and sand that felt as if it could really get into their insides. “Why aren’t you making me go home?” They waded a few more steps into the sea, until it was over the toes of their boots.
“I love you,” the TVwoman replied quickly. She paused, and the connection felt like it weakened. “And I don’t want to give you an incentive to learn to resist me.”
“Come out and I won’t go in any further. This is where my hand is.” Titan TV raised their hand to screen level, palm up, and transmitted the coordinates. They didn’t expect their matriarch to comply, but a wisp of warp stuff appeared on their palm as she materialised. They shielded her from the weather with their other hand. “You think I’m making it up for sympathy, don’t you?”
“It wouldn’t matter. Your mind is part of your body, and all of you is part of the faction.” The TVwoman didn’t also say and wouldn’t you like to be home and comfortable, but she showed it, settling down to lie in the curve of the titan’s palm. “Spend a night resting and reconnecting, let an engineer lay on - or inside you - and attune to your body. They’ll know what you need. And they need you too.”
Titan TV thought about how the engineers had received the worse of their displaced frustration - being restless during repairs, dismissing all but the most unfeasible upgrade plans as not powerful enough to combat the increasing Astro threat, and today they’d frightened the engineer who’d questioned why they were leaving. The grinding feeling was back.
They turned back to the cliffs, shaking their boots out as they returned to shore. It wouldn’t do to bring water back to the dry hangar. “I know who I want,” they told their matriarch.
Her screen brightened, and she snuggled into their palm, reminding the titan that warmth and comfort was only a short teleport away. “Do you still want me there too?”
Titan TV hesitated before they confirmed that, anticipating what a night for repairing a valued relationship might involve. They displayed a ;3 emoji, shyly blending into their screen’s static. “That may not be up to me.”