Chapter Text
N woke up the day after the party with a bright smile on her face, springing out of her bed and getting dressed. She sat down at her mirror, humming a tune to herself as she brushed her hair, turning her head from side to side to get a look at it from all angles before pointing two finger guns at herself, her eyes switching into a pair of sunglasses, a confident smile plastered on her face.
“Lookin’ good today, N!”
She had tried to tell herself that before, nearly every morning, but today she could finally say that without it being a bold faced lie directed towards herself, dawning her pilot cap before grabbing her school bag and heading out the door. Her walk was more of a skip, radiating with positive energy as she made her way over to Uzi's apartment, exchanging a few friendly waves with the drones that walked past, though strangely a few of them only returned either a confused glance, one even looking disgusted. That face sent a slight shiver into her core, but she paid it little mind and continued on her way.
She knocked on the door to her apartment, greeted by Khan, with Nori on his shoulder. Nori gave her a slightly suspicious stare, but overall she seemed a bit more pleased to see her.
“Hi Mr. and Mrs. Uzi! I just came to pick up Uzi before we head to school!”
Khan and Nori both gave her a friendly wave, though their faces dropped slightly, Khan speaking up first since Nori still didn't seem much in the talking mood with the murder drone.
“Ah, well about that. Sorry N, but Uzi's got a pretty bad virus, so she's gonna be staying home for a few days. She hasn't even moved an inch out of bed.”
N's face immediately dropped into worry, a bead of sweat running down her visor.
“I-Is she okay? I can help if you need! I don't want Uzi to feel all alone…”
Nori stopped N before she could speak any further, shaking a claw at her as she spoke.
“Nuh uh young ma'am, We got it handled here. Besides, you got school to go to. I doubt you got much of an education while killing worker drones.”
N seemed disappointed, but let out a sigh, readjusting her bag and giving a gentle nod, perking up again with her ever radiant smile.
“Okay, I understand! But I'll at least come over after school to check on her! Tell her I said hi and that I love her at least?”
The couple looked at each other, Nori seemingly still a tiny bit frustrated at the last part, but they both nodded, Khan putting a hand on N's shoulder to reassure her.
“Don't worry, we will. Now get on going, you don't want to be late for classes!”
N gave a salute with a grin that showed off her fangs and turned to walk away, but just a few steps away, Nori called back to her, making N turn her head with a raised eyebrow.
“N…I know that so far everyone has been supportive of your change, but…people can be cruel. Just remember that. Keep your chin held high kid, don't let them get to you.”
N stood confused for a moment, but felt a warmth in her core over Nori giving her that advice, but everyone in the bunker seemed so nice! Everyone liked her before, why would there be any difference now?
“Oh! Uh, thank you Mrs. Uzi! Have a nice day!”
And so she waved them off and continued down the corridors of the bunker door, her brightness dimming just a little over the fact that Uzi wouldn't be there with her today, but she was still gonna try her best to make it a good day! It's just gonna be class presentations today, so it was going to be pretty calm anyways. What could possibly go wrong? As she walked closer towards the classroom, the hallways started to fill with more drones, N giving as many as she could either a friendly hello or a wave. Though she couldn't help but notice the amount of drones giving them back was fewer than most days, a few drones whispering comments to each other that could still be overheard.
“Oh my God, is that N? Does he think he's a girl now or something?”
A girl whispered into a classmate's ear, giggling and whispering back.
“Ew gross! I thought he was kinda cool at first.”
N pouted slightly, her hands shifting to hold the straps of her backpack as she continued down the halls, now only giving a small, less enthusiastic greeting only to drones who had greeted her first. More comments and snickers were shared, and as best as she tried to suppress it, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of pain in her core at every hateful word thrown her way, even if they weren't addressed directly to her. After finally reaching the sanctity of her desk, she let her bag fall off her shoulders, her visor resting against the desk, letting out a quiet sigh, her real eyes still being able to perceive everything around her. She perked her head up slightly when she noticed Lizzy wasn't in her seat yet, which was strange because she was always one of the first ones in class, wondering where exactly she was. Thad walked into the door next, looking towards N and noticing her less than cheery appearance, sitting next to her and giving her a little smile.
“Hey N&M’s, you good? You're looking a little beat this morning.”
N immediately tried to hide her sadness, giving Thad her best smile and a thumbs up.
“I'm doing great, don't worry about it! I just uh, didn't get a good charge last night! I'll be fine.”
She said with a reassuring smile. Thad stared at her for a minute, not completely believing the lie, though he didn't want to push too hard, and simply turned his head back after sharing a fist bump with N. As the room filled with students, she couldn't help but notice a few of the drones staring at her with confusion, if not something worse. Whispers started to be shared, making her pout once again, tapping her visor against the desk again, this time using her arms to cover the dots on her forehead to completely cut her vision. Lizzy was one of the last ones to enter the class, looking like she'd already been up for hours, and a little exhausted. After she sat down in her desk she opened her bag and seemed to…talk into it? Both Thad and N noticed, but after Thad tried to prod for an answer, she just gave a strangely vague answer.
“Oh, it's just my presentation for the class. I think you're gonna be pretty surprised by it.”
Thad and N gave each other another shrug, leaning back in her seat, looming at all the desks, eyes widening in shock as Doll’s corpse was still propped up in her old seat. ‘Has no one moved that yet? Didn't we already have a funeral and everything?’ She thought to herself. Though there was still a twinge of annoyance in her processors at everything Doll had done, She couldn't help but still feel a little bad for her.
“Hey, where’s V at?”
Thad asked, turning to N. Only then is when she realized that V wasn't in her usual seat next to Lizzy, scanning the room and noticing she wasn't in class at all. Before N could respond, Lizzy interjected with her own answer.
“Oh, she helped me out with my presentation. But she's uh…not happy with how it turned out. Plus she didn't want to do a presentation anyway, so she's just skipping today.”
Now Thad and N were properly confused as to what exactly Lizzy’s presentation was, especially after noticing a small shuffle from inside of her bag, both raising an eyebrow before their attention turned towards the front of the room as attendance started. Once her name was called, N raised her hand up and loudly exclaimed “Here!” The whole class now turned silent as her voice echoed in the room, a mix of shocked faces and murmurs filling the classroom, which made her sink into her seat. As the attention of the room seemed to be elsewhere, Lizzy’s bag unzipped slightly, a red eye barely poking out to investigate the commotion before reaching out a claw and tapping it to get Lizzy’s attention, the core whispering as quietly as possible to not draw attention.
“Подождите, это N? Я могла бы поклясться, что он был мужским дроном-убийцей.”(Wait, that's N? I could've sworn he was a male murder drone.)
Lizzy let out a sigh and leaned over, her voice also dropping to a whisper as she explained to Doll.
“N transitioned not too long ago. Be nice to her, okay? Like I said with V, they're chill.”
The core rolled her eye, grumbling something under her breath before diving back into the bag, Lizzy zipping it back up before continuing on with the class. One by one, the students went up with their presentations, not really seeming to care too much, only putting in the most basic amount of effort necessary to get a decent grade, N slowly shuffling out of her seat when it was finally her turn, giving her best wave to the class.
“Uh, hi! U-Um, as you guys already know, I'm N. And I uh-”
Her sentence was cut off by the snicker of another student in class, putting a hand over his mouth to stop from laughing any louder.
“You know you look ridiculous right? Did you lose some bet or something to come to school looking like that?”
N stood there stunned, her eyes widening slightly, her hand clenching the paper it held.
“W-Well, um. No. This is just how I look now. I realized recently I'm happier living as a girl, so uh…yeah.”
She tried to smile, but felt an awkward silence wash over the room, Thad giving her a small thumbs up and supportive smile from the back of the class.
“Jeez, maybe hanging out with Uzi is making him into a freak too.”
a part of the classroom chuckled at that, the others seemingly not knowing how to respond, one or two random classmates giving N apologetic looks, though they didn't truly help the sudden dread that had washed over her, her core began to beat unrhythmically, bringing a hand up to clutch her chest as her breaths became harder and more labored.
“N, if you aren't going to present your project, please sit back in your seat.”
The teacher spoke to her in a deadpan manner before sighing and slamming his visor into the desk. N walked back, her shoulder slumped and hand still clenched on her chest as giggles and more comments came from the students. Finally, it was Lizzy's turn to present, walking up with her bag.
“What's up nerds! As totally interesting and not boring as the given presentation is, I think my presentation is something that everyone is gonna love. The surprise return of the coolest, and second hottest student in school!”
She announced before pulling open her bag, a core with a red eye scampering out, chuckling as it rested on Lizzy’s shoulder before waving to everyone in class, who all looked petrified after what happened at prom.
“Здравствуйте, одноклассники. Как вы уже поняли, моя смерть была... сильно преувеличена” (Hello classmates. As you can tell my death has been uh… Greatly exaggerated.)
The explanation was brief, but no one seemed to mind as they began to cheer at the return of Doll. The little core then jumped off of Lizzy's shoulder and dived back into the open cavity of her body's chest, nestling back inside before it began to close back up, the long powered off systems taking a while to boot back up. Oil spilled from the drone's mouth as she coughed. As Lizzy sat back down, she watched as Doll readjusted her eyepatch, the damage to her visor strangely enough still not being repaired. After securing it properly she rested her head in her hand, looking around the room before her eye settled on N. N's eyes were hollowed out in fear, as were Thad’s, before they both gave a nervous wave to the recently resurrected classmate and previous enemy. Doll gave a simple wave back before she turned her attention back to Lizzy and talked to her like nothing had happened.
“Are you kidding? That was your secret friend from yesterday?!”
Thad questioned in a whispered yell, leaning over to talk with Lizzy, who had now broken away from her conversation with Doll, who also turned to stare.
“Well yeah, no duh! Besides, I explained the whole ‘Defeating the freaky solver skinwalker by eating her core’ thing. So everything's cool now. Right bestie?”
Doll rolled her eye, her eyebrow furrowing in annoyance as she looked between the three of them.
“Узи все еще может потерять контроль над решателем в любую минуту! И... я все еще злюсь, что ты бросила меня и встречаешься с дроном, который убил моих родителей, Лиззи.” (Uzi could still lose control of the solver any minute! And…I'm still mad at you ditching me and dating the drone that killed my parents, Lizzy)
She grumbled, crossing her arms and looking at Lizzy sternly, Thad and N looking to each other, assuming that the rest of that conversation was best kept between them. Thad reached out and put a supportive hand on N's shoulder, smiling at her gently.
“Hey, I'm sorry about that dude, I…I've been there once. But don't worry, it gets easier. Some of those morons aren't gonna change their mind but if you just keep being you, I'm sure everyone's gonna see you for who you are.”
N felt a tear roll down her visor, wiping it away and taking a deep breath, giving Thad a weary smile.
“Thanks dude, for having my back.”
Thad chuckled and returned her smile, giving N a pat on the back.
“Of course, N&M's! Anything for my best pal! Drones like us gotta stick together.”
With her friend's words, the solitude that N had begun to feel melted away once again, glad that at least one person in this colony was able to truly resonate with what she was going through.
But that feeling of calm was quickly washed away as she soon had to leave for her next class.
N slumped her bag over her shoulder as she prepared for the worst. Her next few classes were nothing short of dreadful, the constant looks of judgment, the giggles and snide comments whispered behind her back, all of it whittling N’s resolve bit by bit. She was finally happy with her body, with who she was, why couldn't people just be happy for her?
Every little interaction played again and again in her processors, she had to use every ounce of will she had to not break down and cry at any moment. She was sitting in her science class now, pouting and taking long, deep breaths and clutching her coat where her core was, every word other drones muttered behind her back like a cut to her confidence, which she'd had so much of this morning, now whittled down to its bare nub. But suddenly, from the dark void of pain and hurt that N was sinking deeper into, a voice finally called out to her.
“You uh, doing okay there?”
The voice asked, it's tone soft and concerned. It was enough to pull N back to reality, stifling a sob she didn't even realize as digital tears dropped down her visor. She wiped them away and turned to look at the drone who'd asked the question, turning to see a drone with blue eyelights, and a green stitched beanie with a matching sweater. N raised an eyebrow, pointing a finger at them as she tried to remember their name.
“Uh, Sam wasn't it? Weren't you at the camp? And didn't Uzi kind of…kill you?”
She asked nervously, shrinking back a bit at the awkward subject, the drone just shrugged and gave her an awkward smile.
“Uh…I got better?”
N stared for a moment, her mouth in the shape of a small ‘o’ as she stared confused at the drone before returning their smile.
“Uh, cool! Glad you made a full recovery!”
N looked at the drone for a little longer, now noticing the colorful little pin they had snagged onto the rim of their beanie, a flag with four colored lines going from yellow to white, then purple to black. Something about it seemed familiar, and she tapped her finger against her mouth as she tried to think back, now remembering back to last night, when Uzi was educating her a bit more on the wider LGBTQ+, talking about the different identities and Uzi sending N pictures of the corresponding flags, smiling warmly as she remembered looking at the trans flag for the first time, and it was then it clicked for her as she remembered Uzi showing her the nonbinary flag soon afterwards.
“Oh! I like the pin! That's the uh…nonbinary flag, right?”
The other drone's eyes widened slightly, shocked that N knew what that pin even was, a small blush dusting their visor as they looked away.
“O-Oh, yeah! Thanks for noticing…I'm surprised you knew what it was.”
N chuckled at Sam’s reaction…wait, was it still Sam? Should probably double check with that! N still made sense to her, it was a single letter. No real gendered ties to a single letter after all, but with other drones, a name change would make sense in most scenarios, though N wasn't quite sure how that worked with nonbinary identifying individuals.
“Uh, is it still Sam, or do you go by something different now? I'm so sorry if I used the wrong name!”
The drone chuckled and leaned back in their chair, completely relaxed as they smiled and responded to N's question.
“Yeah, I still go by Sam, thanks for asking though. It's the thought that counts, right? Honestly I didn't really change anything, just never really saw myself as either a guy or girl, you know?”
N nodded in understanding, smiling softly as she took in Sam's words.
“Oh, that's pretty cool actually! And um, thanks by the way. For asking if I was okay earlier….it's been a rough day. O-Oh, it's N by the way! I don't think I ever properly introduced myself.”
N outreached a hand, and Sam gladly accepted, shaking her hand before clasping them together and ending with a fist bump, their eyes flickering in recognition at the name.
“Woah, N? Like, the same N as the camp counselor? I totally didn't recognize you, you look completely different! Right on, sis. Nice to meet you.”
N let out a deep, calm breath. Her worries washing away again with the small comfort of someone else offering her even the smallest amount of kindness and support. The judgment of the other drones weighed on her core heavily, but this was the second last class of the day now, she could push through it. Then she'd finally get to see Uzi again! She could do this.
Through keeping Thad and Sam’s reassurance in her head, as well as the knowledge of being able to see Uzi again soon, she managed to push through the final class of school, immediately booking it out the door despite the teacher's warning of “The bell doesn't dismiss you, I do!”
N didn't care, all she cared about was seeing her girlfriend again, spreading her wings and flying above the crowd of drones just to get to her as soon as possible. After being let in by Khan, N sprang over to Uzi’s door and knocked on it before opening the door with a smile.
“Ugh, Dad I told you already I don't need anymor- Oh, Hey N.”
Uzi gave a slow, tired wave to her girlfriend, who then walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, giving Uzi her best comforting smile, her hand reaching over to grasp her girlfriend's.
“Hey Uzi! Are you doing okay? You look…pretty rough.”
Uzi shrugged her shoulders, laying back down in bed with a grunt, turning onto her side and letting out a sigh.
“Yeah, it's pretty bad honestly. Everything hurts and feels glitchy, and I can barely think. Dad stuck this stupid “Antivirus” usb in my head saying it'll help it clear up faster…even Ms. Solver is being affected by it.”
Just as she pointed that out, Uzi's tail came out to rest against N's leg, letting out a low rumble, it's eyes dim.
“Bite- me. I told you not to download those- pirated anime files you found on that- sketchy website.”
Uzi growled and pulled on the cord of the tail, her hand dragging up until the head of the tail was facing her.
“Don't you dare start stealing my catchphrase, you weird eldritch planet-eater!”
She raised her voice whilst shaking her tail, though even that small amount of excerption took far too much energy, her hands dropping, the solver resting on Uzi's chest, seemingly just as exhausted. Uzi looked over to N, only then remembering her girlfriend had came to visit her.
“Oh shoot…sorry about that. How did the day go?”
To that question, N's eyebrows furrowed, looking to the ground and letting out a sigh before turning her head back towards Uzi, tears beginning to prick at her eyes.
“I-I've had better, honestly.”
N quickly wiped the tears from her visor, taking a deep breath, her hand slowly reaching over to Uzi's, who held it immediately. Uzi pouted at her girlfriend's sorrowful face, using every ounce of strength to sit up.
“N, what happened? Whose face do I have to punch in?”
N perked up a bit, giggling at Uzi's immediate protectiveness, leaning into her slightly.
“It's fine Uz’, don't worry about it. Just…I guess not everyone's as accepting as you guys were.”
Uzi's core sank, already knowing everything that happened from that one sentence alone, the feeling only being compounded that she couldn't be there for her.
“Of course I'm going to worry about it N, you're my girlfriend! And you don't deserve to be treated like that.”
She leaned in a little more, pressing a gentle kiss on N's cheek before flopping back down on her bed, a tired look in her eyes.
“I promise, I'll make sure nobody treats you that way once I'm all better, okay? I-I love you…”
N gave a genuine smile at Uzi's affection and words, her tail swaying back and forth, giving her a gentle hug and pressing a kiss onto her cheek like Uzi had done for her just moments ago.
“I love you too, Uzi. So much.”
She sniffled, holding back another tear before slowly releasing Uzi from the hug. The two hung out for another hour or so, watching anime while N told Uzi more about her day, specifically about meeting Sam again
“Oh…that's uh…cool I guess? Guess there was something useful in that book for them, even without the pictures. And them being g supportive just means one less ass I have to kick, hehe.”
Uzi and N chuckled simultaneously, nuzzling into each other as they snuggled on the bed. Though N could tell Uzi was just about ready to fall asleep at this point, deciding that it was best to let her turn in for the night, planting a gentle kiss on her cheek before she slowly crawled out of the bed, waving goodbye.
“See you soon Uzi! I love you!”
She giggled at her girlfriend's enthusiasm, and waved back to her slowly.
“See ya N, and tell me later if any other dead classmates start coming back to life, yeah?”
N was just about to leave the door with those words before a memory sparked at her processors, as most of first class had sorta been repressed with all of the initial judgment she got from her classmates.
“Oh yeah…that actually reminded me. Uh, Doll's kinda back? Lizzy brought in her core today for her presentation and then she crawled back into her body. Just uh, thought you should know. Okay, I'll see you soon! Get plenty of rest, I love you!”’
N blew Uzi a kiss before waving her goodbye and exiting her room, Uzi nodding her head absentmindedly, not processing the information until her girlfriend had already left, eyelights hollowing out as she sat up straight in bed.
“Wait, WHAT?!”