Chapter Text
Pink and reddish optics stalked Uzi as she awkwardly skulked off to the bathroom. Lizzy gave an exaggerated eyeroll that landed on Doll, looking for validation. While a regular drone wouldn't be able to tell the difference on her impassive expression, Lizzy could tell she shared the same sentiment.
"А что, если они начнут замечать?" Doll suddenly broke the silence, and Lizzy's translator module lagged for a moment before processed the foreign sounds as 'What if they start to notice?'. She scoffed at the question.
"Dude, no-one will notice she's missing." That response seemed to settle Doll's worry enough, but Lizzy kept talking anyway. "Just do your thing and I'll let in V. We'll see you there."
Lizzy started to make her way out, but before getting anywhere, they were both interrupted by the loud crack of shattering glass. Doll's optics narrowed before speaking "[I'll check on her.]" And with that, she went off to the bathroom.
Snoopily, and maybe unintentionally, she took a brief glance inside Doll's room. Specifically at the dress laid out on the bed. It was undoubtedly something Doll picked out for herself. Really, she did admire that about her, being one of the few people who didn't adhere to her every whim.
Her pink LEDs drifted over to the dress, scrutinizing it with her critical eye, deliberately trying to find something to criticize. Yet she couldn't, the maroon fabric was in remarkable condition considering where it came from, the black accents complimenting it nicely, the bow at the chest adding a pleasant finishing touch with its elegancy. And all of this wasn't even considering who would be wearing it, it'd look good on just about anyone, sure.
But on her?
If Lizzy shut off her optics and strained her CPU enough, she could envision like it was in front of her. That flowing, choppy indigo hair falling over bare, polymer clad shoulders, the black tempered glass covering her core just barely peeping over the dark red clothing. Before she could fry her circuitry, she snapped out of it and turned her optics on again.
She looked around, trying to find something to distract herself with after that unwanted train of thought. Her pink LEDS landed on the two corpses sat at the dining table, their cracked visors and oil stained bodies ruining any sense of normalcy that was attempted to be achieved. While usually unbothered by such blatant display of death, the sight of them only served to remind Lizzy what she was doing this all for.
Before any feeling of doubt could set in, Doll emerged from the bathroom. Clearly, she didn't expect to see Lizzy still here, shown by how she tilted her head at her. Honestly, she was thinking the same thing as her.
"So, like. Why am I here still?" Lizzy asked out loud, moreso to herself, and Doll gave her this 'really?' look.
"[You tell me.]" Doll replied, and Lizzy didn't have a retort to that, knowing that it was a redundant question. She scoffed and walked away from the doorframe, heading for the exit to the apartment. But she couldn't help but wonder.
Was this all really necessary?
...If it was for her, then she supposed it was.
⋆
[VIDEO PLAYBACK END]
Ugh.
Lizzy sat up in her bed, long blonde hair falling in drapes along her shoulders. The back of her hand rose up, wiping away the dampness that artifical drool left on her mouth while she was in sleep mode. A gross habit she couldn't let go of.
Her internal clock in her HUD informed her it was 0721 hours, since when did she wake up so early? She groaned and flopped back down, pressing her hands to her visor, gritting her teeth together. Slowly removing them, she reached for her phone and opened it.
She had 3 new messages from V, but she immediately tapped on Doll's contact out of instinct. Her thumb poised to go back, but hesitated as she read and translated Doll's dry texts. She pulled away and scrolled up, agonizingly slow as she reminisced over every letter.
Mindlessly walking out of the bedroom, Lizzy was suddenly met with a wall. Only it wasn't a wall and it was actually just the titanium reinforced chromium plating of a disassembly drone. She looked up from the floor and was greeted by the squinted yellow optics of V.
A mug was clutched in her hand, the other held over the rim to stop the contents inside from spilling. V cautiously removed her hand from the mug, extending it out to the pink and blonde drone after she laid dazed rather than getting up. Lizzy stared up at her for a second longer, before taking the hand.
Lizzy leaned down and picked her phone off the floor, looking down at it rather than V. She felt the mug abruptly nudged in her direction, tapping against her chest. "You look like you need this more than me." The disassembly drone said when she looked back up.
"I'm not drinking that sludge." She scoffed and pushed it back, making V shrug as she sipped it herself. She set the mug down and leaned down, wrenching a torn up, legless body from one of the lower cupboards casually. It was treated like it wasn't even once living, just an object as it was tossed onto the countertop.
To be fair, Lizzy wasn't squeamish about the viscera. Not only because was it hardcoded in worker drones, but also just she herself was accustomed to the sight of disembodied limbs swimming in viscous oil. Especially after seeing such sights in abundance at Doll's apartment.
As much as she tried not to, she couldn't help the optical glitch that turned V's blade into a worker drone's hand clutching a butchers knife. A little reddish light glinted on the back of white plating. A servo for the wrist lead up to a ribbed metal tube, connecting to polymer clad shoulders.
"What are you looking at?" V asked, snapping Lizzy from her reverie. Her pink LEDs flickered from the oil stained blade to V's face, before merely rolling her eyes and leaning against the counter, optics focused on her phone screen. Her amber gaze lingered before focusing back on her task.
Metal crunched as she swung her blade down on the wrist, severing the hand and pushing it aside. She repeated this motion for the other hand, the movement painfully familiar to Lizzy. It made her glance away, but not because of the gruesome act of pulling out entrails of wires.
V set the body back in the cupboard, placing the cables and dismembered hands in a bowl of oil, vaguely resembling cereal. "You should eat, too." She advised, sauntering off to the living room couch to enjoy her food.
"Ew, no." Lizzy countered, the mere thought of chewing something, let alone swallowing it was enough to make it feel like her wires were crossed a dozen times over. The crushing of polymer by synthetic diamond teeth only made the uncomfortable awareness of her insides worse.
V's brows furrowed on her visor as she looked over her shoulder, in something disgustingly close to concern. It made, or moreso forced Lizzy to look away. "C'mon, Liz, you been acting up since you got out of sleep mode. What's with you?" There was that inevitable question she had been dreading.
"I don't even know what you're talking about." Lizzy countered, crossing her arms. Clearly, V didn't buy it.
"Is this about Doll?" That concern in V's eyes only became something like pity, or maybe recognition, if she looked hard enough. Lizzy tensed, before just dismissing the question with a scoff.
"Ugh. No." She was lying through her teeth and she knew it. "Don't we got school?" Lizzy asked as a change of subject, though she never liked going, especially without her. She didn't have a choice in the matter, however, lest she wanted to be held back again.
V knew she was changing the subject and she could see it on her face, yet she still played along. "Nah, I got work." She shrugged, ripping apart a drone hand with her fangs, barely having a chance to eat her food due to the conversation with Lizzy.
"Work?" She repeated the word like it was foreign, squinting her optics at V.
"Yeah. That thing called a job. Figured I could make use of Sparky." V said, casually, kicking her legs up on the coffee table. Lizzy huffed and started walking back to her room, wordlessly.
⋆
The door gave a pneumatic hiss as the hydraulics churned, giving Lizzy entry to her room. Her boring, plain room. The only decoration consisted of boxes containing her stuff, yet to be unpacked, and her guitar, the one thing she'd bothered to unpack after moving in with V.
Her new room was different to the one at home, since the residence was at a lower level, it lacked any windows and was considerably smaller. Most obviously was the clear lack of posters and stickers and post it notes, making it feel monochromatic. But what stood out most to Lizzy, was the lack of a specific picture frame.
She kicked a few boxes aside, trying to reach her closet. Lizzy started changing into her school clothes, pulling off her modest shirt in favor of a black tank top and her cheerleader uniform. Her optics caught a glimpse of something reflecting off glass.
The flap of one the boxes had shifted aside from her moving them to get through, revealing a picture with a wooden frame. She crouched down, her mechanical hands closing around it. Upon further inspection, it was a picture of her and Doll together.
Technically, it wasn't that special of a picture, just the two of them sitting at her old bed together. But just the sight of seeing the two of them together, like best friends again, gave her pause as she riffled through her memory banks unwillingly. She ran a scratched thumb over the surface, before scoffing at her own sentimentality and tossing the picture back inside the box.
Lizzy went off to the exit to her door, but not before pausing and checking the picture she had so unceremoniously discarded was undamaged. She picked up her phone on the way out, gave V a silent wave, then she was off. Off to another day, spent alone.