Work Text:
Gurathin's hands were cold. Abnormally cold. My sensors registered it when he accidentally brushed my hand trying to find something in his toolkit—it was behind his back (and so was I), and he was too busy installing some research equipment to even look in this direction.
Now, I don't know much about human anatomy, but I'm pretty sure their hands aren't supposed to be significantly colder than the rest of the body and almost as cold as the surrounding environment. The temperature in this part of the planet during the day cycle was somewhat lower than what is usually comfortable for humans but still optimal. Besides, we were indoors, even though the climate control system wasn't working yet.
I checked the vitals of the other research team members, and all of them were within normal parameters. No imminent danger. So, what was wrong with Gurathin?
He was still too busy with the equipment to notice anything, so I moved closer and increased my body temperature. How could he even work like that? Hadn't his fingers become numb from hypothermia?
I switched to one of my drones, which was hovering near Gurathin's face, to assess the level of threat. His long, pale fingers were skillfully rummaging through the numerous wires and circuits, occasionally pausing mid-air and making sweeping movements when Gurathin needed to find something in the feed.
The scene was mesmerizing in its own way. First, he picked up a wire with his little finger, separating it from the large bundle. Then he caught a few more wires of a different color from the adjacent bundle between his index and middle fingers and plugged them all into one connector. Then Gurathin gently squeezed the connector's pins with his fingertips to secure the wires and tugged on each one to make sure they were firmly in place.
With his other hand, he made an opening in a transparent protective membrane with the tool he'd finally found, then slid the connector with the wires through it and attached it to the central chip. When the indicator lit up, signaling that the connection was set up correctly, Gurathin's eyes lit up as well.
Whoever had connected the wires inside my body certainly wasn't as passionate about their work and… almost tender? And they surely didn't have such skillful fingers and black-painted nails. Or this fascinated gleam in their eyes. For a moment, I almost envied the equipment Gurathin was working on. What a stupid thought, Murderbot!
Gurathin paused several times to rub his palms together, and each time my sensors detected a brief rise in the temperature of his hands. But overall, they remained just as cold.
"You have to wear gloves," I said when the problem became too hard to ignore.
"What?" Gurathing turned his head and stared at me in confusion.
"Your hands are dangerously cold. You need to warm them up."
"Ah, this. They're always like that. You have nothing to worry about."
He waved his hands in the air, as if showing they were still there and hadn't fallen off, and went back to work.
So, Gurathin knew about his dangerous condition and did nothing about it? It was even worse. I dug up a few videos of Gurathin in my permanent storage (which I'd saved solely for the purpose of studying human behavior) and singled out the ones where he tried to warm his hands by rubbing them together, breathing on them, or tucking his palms under his armpits. And why hadn't I noticed him doing that before? I compiled these videos into a single sequence and sent it to him in the feed.
Explain.
After 9.3 seconds spent on viewing the sequence, Gurathin took a deep breath and turned to me again.
"It's a chronic condition caused by poor blood circulation. Are you satisfied now?"
Maybe he was half-lizard like the stellar inquisitor from Strife in the Galaxy, after all.
"No, not until you put on gloves."
"Listen, it's very sensitive equipment, and I can't work with it in gloves. I'll be fine, SecUnit."
I didn't like that answer. I didn't like the idea—even a hypothetical one—that one of my humans might suffer because of his stubbornness. (I didn't like that he was paying so much attention to that damn equipment. ) So far, this mission has been uneventful and accident-free, and I'd prefer it to stay that way. But Gurathin seemed to be deliberately trying to ruin everything.
"If you refuse to put on gloves, we'll have to warm your hands some other way."
We? Gurathin switched to the feed, his amusement bleeding into it. Did he think I was joking or what?
Yes, we. Now get up.
He stood up, a look of obvious confusion on his face. The confusion gave way to awe when I unzipped my jacket and pulled up my hooded shirt to bare my torso (it was funny to watch, and I've saved this moment to my permanent storage).
Put your hands on my abdomen. I don't like humans touching me, but the situation demanded it, okay?
This is really unnecessary…, Gurathin's feed voice was strained.
"Just do what I'm asking," I said out loud, trying to sound reassuring and not commanding.
After another deep sigh, he placed both hands on my abdomen. If I were human, I might've jumped or cried out at how cold they were. Instead, I raised my body temperature even higher.
"Now, this is really awkward. And must be unpleasant for you," said Gurathin with a strange expression on his face.
It was… At first, I really thought about dialing down my skin sensitivity to the minimum, but once Gurathin's hands had warmed up a bit, it turned out not to be so awful (maybe 5 out of 10 on the awfulness scale).
I focused on the sensations, on how Gurathin's fingertips barely touched my skin, as if he were trying to minimize physical contact. It didn't make sense, but… I appreciated the effort and let him know that in the feed. In response, I received a rush of mixed emotions that were hard to distinguish from one another, but they were… the kind humans usually describe as "warm".
"If this chronic condition causes you discomfort, why not see a doctor?" I asked.
Humans are often inexplicably careless about their own health, and Gurathin was a living embodiment of that carelessness.
"As if I haven't tried. When this problem became prominent, back in the Corporate Rim, I went to see a doctor, but they just suggested buying a more expensive health plan. And in the Preservation, I was told the augments in my hands had affected my blood circulation, and it's permanent."
"Not everything in the human body can be fixed," added Gurathin after 4.6 seconds of silence.
I pondered his answer. The human body really is too fragile—unpredictably fragile and ineffective. Augments are meant to improve it, but apparently it doesn't always work that way. And improvements in one system can disrupt something in another. It's so much easier to be a SecUnit (aside from the agony device that controls your every action).
"Seccy, Gura, are you done yet?" Ratthi's head suddenly poked out of the doorway, surprising both of us.
Great job, Murderbot. The loudest of your humans managed to catch you off guard, as if you were some kind of an outdated, lower-intelligence security bot. What if it had been aggressive local fauna? Or raiders? Neither was present in this part of the planet, but you can never be too sure.
Ratthi stared at Gurathin (who still hadn't taken his hands off my abdomen) and me, and his eyes went very wide. I thought people only made such exaggerated expressions in low-quality serials, but no. There was Ratthi—with a look of utter surprise, wide eyes, and a comically open mouth.
"I just wanted to say that Bharadwaj has already made dinner and… not that Seccy needs it… but Gura… I think I should go," Ratthi's head was gone as suddenly as it had appeared, and judging by the sound of his hurried footsteps…
Oh shit, Gurathin and I either said or thought in unison when we realized he ran off to tell everyone else what he'd just seen.
I suppose I should skip dinner. And maybe the next one as well, Gurathin chuckled in the feed.
I'd suggest avoiding any of them for the next few days.
I wondered how soon Ratthi or Mensah or someone else would want to "talk about it" because they were definitely going to draw the wrong conclusions about Gurathin and me. I was just doing my job of keeping one of my humans safe, if not from external threats than from himself. That's it.
"That's it," echoed Gurathin. "It's time to get back to work. Thank you, by the way, it really helped."
He took off his now-warm hands and… what do you call it when something that was there, something you had already grown used to, is now gone? That's how I felt. I saved this sensation to my permanent storage because I didn't know what to make of it. It was messy in an emotional way.
"Dr. Gurathin," I said when he turned away and shifted his attention to the stupid equipment. "I might need your help adjusting some of my systems… I think the wiring is in disorder."
There, I said it. Because my fucking brain was apparently in disorder too.
Gurathin froze for 0.5 second, his hand hanging in mid-air before grabbing some tool. I switched to the drone to get a better look at his face—the expression was just as perplexed as I felt. He cleared his throat before answering.
"Only if you don't mind my dangerously cold hands touching your wires."
"I think I can handle that," I said with confidence.