Chapter Text
“I don’t wanna spend my time in hell…”
“Lookin’ at the walls of a prison cell…”
There’s a hidden camera in a shrub twenty feet from the garage.
Its aperture shrinks and dilates, the operator zooming in and refocusing on the two figures inside.
Three hundred and twenty-three yards from the scene, a repurposed watertower sits next to the park’s Lost and Found. There, two security robots are sat in front of a wall of security feeds, carefully watching one.
Larry sits at the edge of a leather office chair, R-T’s cluttered desk in front of him. R-T himself sat on a stool beside him, carefully watching the scene unfold as well.
Both are used to watching the park’s events on these screens. One more than the other, but regardless, the security team has long since grown used to watching park-life unfold through these screens, and cold to the unsettling insinuation of them.
Nothing goes unseen in the park. Not under them.
Today, the curious brother and intrigued boss use that fact to their advantage. After the workday was finished, Lawrie left for the junkyard. Larry rushed to the watertower surveillance room.
R-T had already pulled up the relevant feeds, having planted the recording devices a day prior.
Through the screen, he sees Nani working at a large machine in the center of the room, when Lawrie walks in from the side. She lights up as she catches sight of him. She turns off the music— a fact picked up by the hidden tape recorder beneath the workbench— and pushes her toolbox aside.
Larry exhales sharply. He slumps to rest his elbows on the desk, and his chin on his hand. The bright glare of the screens hide his expression from R-T, sat beside him.
R-T idly swings his short legs back and forth as he watches.
The two sit in silence for a few moments longer. Lawrie initiates some small-talk, Nani responds happily; same old scenes they’ve watch unfold countless times now. Larry’s just waiting for the moment. The moment he pulls out that flower he picked, tucked into his sleeve. When he tells her those lines they’ve rehearsed, she says yes, happily-ever-after for his brother achieved. Probably.
R-T’s high-pitched voice fills the silence. Larry startles slightly, having been so focused on the monitor.
“...Larry,” R-T says.
“Yes?” he responds, lifting his head and straightening his back.
R-T rotates the stool to face him. He pauses. The officer looks troubled, tense even. Moreso than Larry normally is, which is surprising to him; he’s always so uptight under that mask of optimism and cheer.
A click noise comes from R-T. His head begins to float above his body. “Wanna drink?” he asks in a chirp.
Larry turns to him. “We only have the drinks Lawrie bought in the fridge, no?”
“Well, he bought so many of them!” R-T says, “I doubt he will notice.” R-T’s face monitor winks.
“Okay, okay.” He smiles, amused. “I would like one.”
R-T’s head hovers to the back corner of the room. Moments later, he’s flown back with a canned drink balanced on his head.
Larry stares at at the design. Yellow and red. There’s a brawler flexing, printed on the can.
Surge.
The drink brand was his own. ‘Surge’s Power Drink for Bots’. It was functionally identical to his line of human energy drinks, except for the fact its about fifty-percent motor oil. The taste was… a taste. But it didn’t matter to him, really.
He grabs the drink. His hand covers the print of Surge on the can.
Larry was quite close with him at one point. Surge would come over to the Lost-and-Found while he was on duty, gifting him his extra stock of the drink, before the two of them would head off somewhere— to ‘hang out’. They’d watch one of his movies, or get food from the foodcourt, or even walk the pier at sunset. Larry enjoyed his company for what it was.
An uptight rules-lawyer and a party-animal. A strange companionship, but it was true.
No wonder it didn’t work out. They were too different bots looking for two different things.
Larry scoffs. “ Lawrie sure loves this stuff,” he remarks.
The can hisses open. He takes a sip.
R-T clicks his floating head back into its place on his body. A strange feeling of calmness washes over him. He’s glad to be back in once piece.
He returns his attention to the scene on the monitor. It seems the two have made themselves comfortable since he last paid attention to the feed. Lawrie’s sat down on a folding-chair Nani’s pulled up for him, and Nani’s perched atop a metal work platform, sipping a can of motor oil as she sits at eye-level of him. R-T figures he still hasn’t asked her out yet. Maybe—
Larry suddenly pushes the can away.
R-T turns his head. “Huh?” he asks, concern filling his high-pitched voice.
Silently, Larry lowers his head.
“...Is it expired?”
Larry sighs. “No, it’s just that…” his voice trails off.
R-T blinks.
“I do not like this drink, R-T.”
R-T pauses. “Well…”
The room fills with silence, only the quiet sound of Lawrie and Nani’s voice playing through the TV’s speakers.
R-T breaks the silence between them with a sigh. “From my observations,” he interjects, “Breakups tend to do that.” R-T crosses his legs. “They turn objects which used to be tolerable, into things which are absolutely unbearable .”
Larry shakes his head. “No, I mean—” He exhales sharply. “—I do not think I ever liked this drink.” He suddenly stands up from his chair.
R-T tilts his head confusedly. “You—”
“I GET the drink! At least, I believe I do.” Larry paces back and forth in front of the screens. “But there’s a DIFFERENCE between knowing and… knowing!” He stops, and turns to R-T. “Yet I… just…” He exhales sharply. “I simply… do NOT like it.”
R-T stares at him. He starts a sentence, but stops himself again.
Larry walks up to R-T, and suddenly grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. “ Everyone likes the drink, R-T!”
“Wooaaahh!”
“I see ads for it on TV! I see brawlers and visitors drink it in the streets! I see cans, bottles of the stuff everywhere! And STILL—!”
“Laarry—!” R-T shook.
“I. DO NOT. LIKE…”
Larry stops shaking him. He lowers his head, energy leaving him.
“...the drink…” he mutters.
He lets go of R-T, and sighs. “No matter how many times I have tried it, or watched people try it, or even gave people the opportunity to try it…” Larry stared down at the can in his hand. “I never could convince myself… that I liked it.”
He tenses as his fist curls into a ball, crushing the can. The rose-red liquid splashes to the floor, and drips onto his hand. He throws the drink into the trashcan nearby. It clangs loudly as it lands among the other thrown-out junk.
An insincere, sardonic chuckle escapes him. “There is something terribly wrong with me, R-T,” Larry puts his hand on his smiling face in shame. “I think I need a mechanic…”
Larry’s rational mind returns to him, and his attention returns to the surveillance feed. The bright light of the screens obscures his eyes completely.
“...Do you think Lawrie has any idea how much of a fraud I am?” he asks in almost a whisper. “How little confidence I have in my capabilities as an officer, how fake my smile truly is?”
R-T takes a second to catch his breath, his chair still spinning from the shaking. As he stops himself with his feet on the table, Larry beside him slumps back into his chair.
From the surveillance screens, the faint sound of laughter cuts through the silence. R-T turns his head to the feed. Larry stares into the wall.
Lawrie’s faint voice echoes through the room.
“It’s funny, you know.”
“What is?” a high pitched voice responds.
R-T increases the volume.
“…I don’t think I would be here without my brother.”
Nani’s smiling, her back turned to Lawrie as she tightens a bolt into a machine. “Here, here? In my garage?” she chirps. “Or here, in general?”
Lawrie shrugs, his arms crossed as he leans against a tool shelf. “Probably both.”
Larry’s gaze returns to the monitor.
“He convinced me to come down to see you after all.” Lawrie pauses. “Not that I… didn’t… want to come here, or anything—“ he clears his throat. “I really did. But… uh, work. And… busy…ness…” he muttered a string of curses under his breath, stumbling on his words.
Nani giggles. “It’s okay, officer! I think I understand what you mean.”
He sighs. “…I’m not the greatest when it comes to social affairs.” He tipped his hat. “I’m sure you can tell...”
Nani puts down the wrench, bolt fixed, and turns around to face him.
“…But my brother, he helped me with… this. And now,” he paused. “Well, I am here. Talking to you. Despite the fact I never do social visits like this with others.”
“Really?” she asked. “Never ever?”
“Never ever.”
She smiles. “I’m glad you’re comfortable enough with me for that,” she said sweetly. “In truth, I was hoping you’d come. I really enjoyed our talks.”
Lawrie smiled.
“I’m glad your brother could help you get out of your shell like that.” She sighed. “You know, you are quite the lucky bot, to be built with a sibling.” She sat down on her metal platform, eye level with him. “Sometimes, I wish I had someone like that.”
Behind his back, Lawrie fiddles with the flower tucked into a compartment in his arm.
He bows his head with a smile.
“I’m glad to have him. Truly.”
“Larry.”
In the security room, Larry’s attention snaps back to reality as R-T calls his name.
“I think…” R-T says quietly, “You need to learn a valuable lesson in taking your own advice.”
Larry exhales sharply, leaning forward in his chair and resting his forearms on the table. “Perhaps I do.” he says, looking at him with a faint smile.
“So what if you’re fake, and he knows it?” R-T crosses his legs. “Whether he does, or doesn’t— the fact is that he looks up to you.” His voice rises in pitch. “And… he needs you, Larry!” R-T says. He glances at the screen. Looks like Lawrie’s about to do something.
“You know,” R-T says, “Regardless of how the situation unfolds… I think an officer is soon going to need backup,” He gestures to the screen, at Lawrie standing with Nani in the garage.
Larry lifts his head. He sighs. “I suppose you are right. Looks like brother could use an assist.” he remarks. “However these next moments go…” he says, quieter.
R-T’s eyes grin. “Then get outta here, Larry!” he says lightheartedly.
Larry gives him a small salute, before he gets up from his chair and makes his leave. He turns the corner into the precinct’s hallway, and the CRT screen— the scene of Lawrie and Nani in the garage— leaves his sight.
[----]
Nani smiles. “Oh! Your name is… Lawrie?”
“It… it is. Yes.” Lawrie nods, carefully hiding his nervousness under a stoic expression. The rose in his hand keeps steady.
For a moment, Nani and Lawrie stand there, in the garage by the Junker’s house, waiting for the other to speak. She’s atop a metallic work platform, eye-to-eyes with Lawrie. He wonders if he had already said something wrong. Maybe it was a mistake, asking her out in the first place. What a blockhead. He shouldn’t have come. Call in backup. He’s nothing without…
No. No . He is more than his brother’s twin. He’s the strongarm of the law, the badcop extraordinaire. He’s got this. Lawrie’s got this.
Nani breaks the silence with the sound of her giggles. Perplexed, Lawrie’s facade breaks.
“What’s so funny? Is… My name…?”
“Huh? Oh—no! No no no! I’m not laughing at your name! ‘Lawrie’ sounds lovely! Lawrie… Law-rie…” she chirps.
From behind her back, her personal bot Peep appears and flies to Lawrie, extending a small mechanical hand to pluck the red rose from his before hovering back.
Nani grabs the rose from Peep. She smiles as she examines its petals.
“It’s just… I didn’t expect…” She giggles.
Lawrie raises an eyebrow.
“You and Larry really are brothers, hhm?” Nani smiles, the sweetest thing in the world. “Larry… Lawrie… it’s practically the same as his!”