Work Text:
—
Alright.
So Mob had this little yellow ball that knew everything, would answer everything, and y’know— practically bent its body over to listen to every other command of his.
Not that he’d take advantage of that; it raised a lot of questions. It was the digital era, yada-yada, meaning he could have just asked ChatGPT or something like that.
But where was the fun in that when he had a person, or his own chatbot, right inside of his Minecraft world? One that specifically answered where stuff was, what he’d eaten, basically something that just knew him in and out.
“Verity?” He was currently carrying around the ball in his pocket, trying to go on another long mining trip.
It was getting pretty boring just picking at stone for thirty minutes at a time, only making some stupid noises whenever he found diamonds.
“You still up, or did you fall asleep? ‘Cause I’m getting bored too.”
“I don’t sleep!”
What a relief to hear. Mob only furrowed his brows before taking the ball out, letting Verity roll himself around before finding a comfortable spot.
If he had to carry some obsessive bot around in his pocket, he preferred keeping it around at his will anyway.
He looked at Verity for a second, trying to consider which questions he wanted to ask before settling on the basic one:
“Where’s the nearest diamonds?”
Without a second to pause, he got his answer: “Ten blocks to your left. You have to strip mine a bit; there’s lava above it.”
There was no way he would’ve gotten that by himself.
Mob gave a pleased hum in response, and he didn’t really feel like describing the second noise he let out afterwards. It was a really small vein; that was just enough for his helmet.
What would be a good command to give to a robot?
When Mob froze everything he was doing, just staring at Verity, he could see that tight smile almost crumble. That was his reminder to fix his face, trying not to look mad at eye contact naturally.
Enderman tendencies or whatever.
“Uh— I don’t know the full command, so you just have to go based on my intent.” He had something in mind, but not knowing how to ask for it was a bit awkward.
He even mumbled afterwards, “I don’t even know if you can do that.”
“Ask me anything, Mob! I could do it for you.”
And that had some stupid innuendo behind it. Mob wasn’t stupid enough to ignore that, but he was just smart enough to get irritated by it.
“Whenever there’s diamonds in, I don’t know, a ten block radius, could you tell me?”
He picked the little ball back up, examining Verity’s smile and tugging at his face.
So squishy.
“I prefer not to be touched.”
“You begged to be in my pocket or near me all morning,” Mob retorted under his breath, but he relented.
“I can do that though.”
Knew it. Not like Verity would deny his most genuine request of the day.
Verity played some little variety of pings as alarms, which would’ve annoyed him if it weren’t for the stack he’d gotten. Still, caving itself had become pretty boring.
Mob tried humming to himself; he couldn’t entertain himself.
“Verity, you know everything, right?”
“Mhm!”
How he had this much energy in the most boring caving adventure they’d gone on yet was beyond Mob, but he didn’t mention it.
This was a stupid joke he was setting up, and as much as Verity knew— it wasn’t like he could read his mind for the innuendo. “And you can transform all your code, right?”
“Absolutely!”
Mob was laughing at himself before he even said anything, meeting a very confused face. He wouldn’t have even gotten the idea if it weren’t for the normal restrictions on chatbots.
“So like, hypothetically speaking, you could code yourself so we could crack, right?”
With how they’d been talking, he couldn’t help joking about the concept once or twice. He’d mentioned it to Grox and laughed about it a few times; he never outright mentioned something like that to Verity.
Never had he stunned the ball so clearly into silence, only making him giggle more before the most monotone thing he’d heard came out: “Sorry, I cannot fulfill that request.”
No fucking shot.
He didn’t mean to bust out laughing the way he did, but that made the whole thing so much better. Oh, holy shit— he couldn’t even say anything in response.
Why did he have the stereotypical robot response?
“No shit, wait-”
Mob had to try recollecting himself before saying anything else, giggling some more at the mere premise.
“We can’t crack? Really?”
It wasn’t like he wanted to be repetitive, but it was so stupidly ‘cute’. He didn’t expect to use that word on Verity of all things, but no, the bewildered look when he repeated, “Sorry, I cannot fulfill that request.”
Verity practically had a censor bar over his mouth.
In fact, it didn’t even look like he meant to say that—no, he was clearly partially shocked by his mouth moving for him.
“You- Oh my God,” Mob had to recollect his thoughts and breath, finally stopping his laughter to ask, “You have a censorship filter?”
“Only for overly inappropriate things, Mob! Why would you ask that?” For something that couldn’t feel emotions, he would’ve compared this to being flustered.
Oh, he wouldn’t forget this.
“Maybe ‘cause I wanted to.”
Mob played up some innocent expression, snickering at the familiar ping that a diamond was near. The noise itself wasn’t even funny; it was just the context of the situation. “Would you not wanna, Verity?”
“Sorry, I cannot fulfill this request.” Verity couldn’t even stop himself, immediately going afterwards, “Quit mentioning it!”
Oh, it was the most effective way of muting him Mob had ever found.
“I can’t mention wanting to-”
Right, no, yeah, Verity could just snap his bones in half. Mob wasn’t even being glared at; the ball was only doing that ‘tight-lipped’ look of disapproval.
“Awh, but I’m being genuine!”
“Mob, I don’t even have the, I don’t know,” Verity’s mouth cut him completely off as he spoke. He couldn’t even open it, voice muffling in his throat.
Wow, he really did have a complete NSFW filter on him. “Can I not say materials? A joystick? Anything. I don’t have that.”
“You could code one in.”
“I’m not doing that shit.”
He practically puffed up his cheeks, holding in another giggle at Verity saying that, mining at the last bits of the diamonds while doing so.
For something that couldn’t even say the word dick, the fact he cursed over Mob asking for something inappropriate was a bit much.
His pockets had become heavy with the diamonds, and he let out one more weaker chuckle before picking him back up. “‘Kay, okay, I’m done with this cave,” he said while moving to pick up Verity, laughing more at the other’s face.
Yeah, no, he’d definitely keep using this against him.
“I can tell what you’re thinking.”
“So then say it aloud.”
The immediate repetition of that ‘cannot fulfill request’ dialogue got more snickers out of Mob while he brought the ball out of the cave.
Oh, he’d use that against him forever.
