Work Text:
You’re upset.
I was shaking so it was pretty obvious I was upset. Even a human would notice this level of a reaction, so of course ART and its ridiculous amounts of processing power had noticed that I was upset over something really stupid and small.
I pressed my hand to the hatch control and opened the door to my bathroom. I know, I said.
I did know. I knew this. But my organics didn’t seem to and the stupid things had gone numb and tingly all over which made it hard to think properly.
(I think I was having some kind of processing error, or a redacted event, or another dreaded emotional collapse. I’d look for an example from the shows that I watch, but that was the problem that had started this in the first place, and now the thought of opening my files to try to understand what was happening immediately sent another spike of adrenaline rushing through me.)
I fumbled with the hatch close control to seal myself off from the rest of my room.
I didn’t mean to upset you.
Unfortunately I couldn’t seal myself off from ART and it was the one I really needed some space from but it was everywhere.
I struggled to respond to it because my head was going fuzzy and I was processing everything in slow motion.
I know, I said again.
(ART is an asshole, but it wasn’t usually an asshole like that. And I knew it hadn’t meant to upset me. But it kinda had and now my organics were all screwy and fucking everything up.)
ART had gone silent but I could feel it pressing down on me. It made more of that tightness creep up into my chest and my human-code wanted me to take short-sharp breaths.
ART didn’t know what to do with me like this and that was fine, because I didn’t know what to do with me either. All I could think was that I didn’t want to be angry-upset and that showers were nice and good at making me not-angry and so maybe if I tried some things from the calming down list in the shower I wouldn’t be angry-upset anymore.
I removed my clothes and dropped them on the floor. The recycler seemed too far away at the moment and I could pick them up later when it mattered. I could see that ART had queued up for it to spit out some warm and fluffy towels and that didn’t make me feel warm like it usually would. I already missed that feeling.
My whole body had gone clumsy so I stumbled a bit when entering the hygiene cubicle. Stupid clumsy feet to go with my clumsy fingers that struggled to close the door behind me to keep the recycled cleaning fluid contained.
I was still trying to take short-sharp breaths so I disabled emotions-like-a-human.
I wanted to try this under my own control anyway, without coding muddling the experience up.
The tightness in my chest didn’t go away with the human code. I still felt strange and wrong.
ART turned the cleaning fluids on for me, which was a nice gesture except that my organics had another surge of adrenaline at the reminder that it was around. This time it was my internal organics that went numb and tingly, which was a new and uncomfortable feeling because I didn’t have a lot of those and I was feeling them a lot.
I stood in the corner of the hygiene cubicle and watched the fluids fall down, their droplets causing a haze of steam that smelt like nothing but [damp] [warm].
I just needed some time away from it to recalibrate.
I couldn’t enter the fluids and do what I wanted to do while it was there. It felt kind of like a trap, with the feed too tight and heavy around me, and knowing that it was going to watch me do something pretty stupid (I was pretty sure ART only had sensors in the bathroom and not an actual camera, but my abdomen twisted at the thought of it making comments about me anyway. Or asking questions).
ART’s not good at being patient. It flickered the lights in concern. You haven’t entered the shower.
(See, I knew it hadn’t meant it. I knew it was concerned. My organics still had a weird spike when it spoke and I was glad I didn’t have a stomach.)
I composed then recomposed a feed message to it. Then I deleted it because it had gotten very long and was full of embarrassing over explanations. Then I tried again and this time my organics went weird and twisty about what I wrote so I deleted that one too. This was more difficult than expected because I both did and did not want to yell at ART. I really wanted to be not-upset-angry and to get under the recycled cleaning fluids and try the… things I had been recommended.
My fingers had started to drum against my thigh, even as I double checked my human codes were all still disabled.
I stripped back my feed message to key points: Yes, I’m upset. I know you didn’t mean to. I need some space. I don’t want to see you. I deleted the last line, then I packaged them up with a timer for 45 minutes and shoved them at ART.
It plucked the feed message off me before I had even registered that my external messages outgoing had transferred the package to my external messages archive.
You want 45 minutes without me.
The strain of its presence meant I had started to drop some inputs and one even went sideways.
Yes. I tried to be firm, but I felt rather small and a little like I was begging. That feeling made me upset-angry too.
The weight of ART’s feed disappeared and I took an experimental deeper breath. (Not powered by human-code, but taking a deep breath was one of the things on the list.) I didn’t feel worse, so that was promising.
Trying this outside of the shower would feel too organic, and I really didn’t want to feel organic right now, but in the shower there shouldn’t be any sensation of skin on skin. Only a sense of pressure muffled by the recycled cleaning fluids.
I brought up the list I had made in my interface, then put them into some kind of order to make myself feel less stupid about this (I was stalling even though ART wasn’t watching). I had been recommended this, I was told it could help and that it was normal for humans and it wasn’t sex (I had some of it categorised as both sex and not-sex, which brought back the uncomfortable flipping sensation in my insides) so maybe it would also be good for constructs.
I started small and I stepped under the water.
Showers were something I didn’t have any negative experiences with, were quiet and warm, and nobody could see me make a fool of myself. (And I enjoyed them, usually.)
I checked the list again and had an internal sigh. I was already feeling better just being alone and under the water, but every now and then something under my organic skin would twist and heat up.
Maybe if I did another small thing before I properly started the list?
It was easy to wash my hair, it still wasn’t very long and I didn’t need to brush it yet despite what Amena and ART said. I could scrub my fingers through my hair to remove any tangles then rub at my scalp. The list recommended focusing on sensations so I did that and it was okay. It didn’t feel any different to when I usually washed my hair, even when I varied the pressure and speed. I rated it as not bad but unsatisfying. It just felt like washing my hair and layered some annoyance into my already overly messy emotions.
My list included a selection of common media tropes. I had been encouraged to search out things that I thought I might like to try as calming activities (and was given a list of examples of things that I might consider, that I had tagged as maybe-sex, but I was provided the list with firm reassurance that it was not by a trusted source).
Another small one from the list: I covered my face with my hands, then pressed gently inwards. I made note of both the sensation from my finger tips and the pressure-sensation on my face. I repeated my hair washing experiment with a range of strength and speed. It felt different when I rubbed my head into my hands instead of my hands into my head. I decided I liked to slowly rub my head into my hands and repeated that for a few minutes.
That felt better, I could feel something in me relaxing. Not the tight chest, but the muscles along my back and arms which let the movement become easier.
I felt bold after that. I switched to the next item and raised my face up into the falling fluids. The sensation wasn’t bad, it was lighter than my own hands and I enjoyed the unpredictability of the landing patterns. I was going to rate this experience pretty positively but then I tried to take a deep breath to release that tightness in my chest and inhaled some of the fluids. I didn’t need a human code to start reflexively coughing and hacking.
ART was instantly there again and I was thankful my hands had been in SecUnit neutral while I had experimented with raising my head, because I didn’t want to answer questions about what I was doing.
What are you doing? It demanded, with way too much of its weight leaning into my space and setting off a string of the hot tingling feelings I had just started to get rid of. The muscles in my back tensed up again and I had to stop my arm guns from charging but I knew that ART knew that I had started to do that and stopped myself.
It flickered the bathroom lights uncertainly. I got your lung obstruction auto-health alert.
I’m fine. I leaned away from it in the feed but it followed after. I inhaled some water, it’s not a big deal.
ART was silent in that pointed way where it knew it could speak but had chosen not to so that I’d think about what I’d just said.
My space ART. You agreed to 45 minutes. I checked the counter, The 2 minutes you have spoken to me don’t count.
I don’t understand how I have upset you. Now ART sounded upset and I felt worse about that, as it made my angry-upset take up more of my chest space. It wouldn’t do much but I closed my eyes to reduce stimulation and force my fuzzy head to focus on not fucking up this friendship.
It’s complicated okay. I don’t want to explain. I just want my shower. I’m allowed to have my space. I quickly sent it a copy of my contract, highlighting the personal sections where I was allowed to have ART-free space when I asked for it. I felt bad asking it for that, when I was living inside it, but I really needed that space. I sent it a new 45 minute timer set to start when it left the feed and handed that to it.
The lights fluctuated in frustrated-sad way but then its presence eased off and I could take slightly deeper breaths. I checked, but my human codes hadn’t turned themselves back on so that was all me.
I started to bring my hands up to my face for a repeat of the head rubbing but then hesitated, because what if-
I faked a bunch of dramatic coughs, and then because they were obviously fake (SecUnits aren’t made for acting) I intentionally inhaled some water to set off another round of coughing and auto-health alerts.
ART didn’t return and I felt relieved, then bad, then bad I felt bad, then relieved it couldn’t see me feeling bad, which made me feel bad again-
I shoved my head into my hands and rubbed again. I knew that felt good, and I repeated that until my muscles started to relax again.
The randomised patterns had been nice, but I didn’t want any more ART-attracting accidents while I tried things so I reluctantly crossed off anything that involved looking upwards into the falling fluids.
I started the next item tentatively, because it wasn’t sex but I was still worried it was sex-adjacent enough to freak me out and that ART might see. It involved wrapping my hands around myself, across my chest and under my arms. That didn’t feel like much. It wasn’t bad. I tried tightening my arms some more and that felt like something. (The something was better than angry-upset and related emotions and chemicals.)
The tightness inside my chest eased with the more real and physical tightness of my arms. I compressed myself so tightly I could feel my ribs start to bend and that actually felt sort of nice, to change the inside feelings to outside feelings.
It felt especially good when I tried to take a deep breath and I couldn’t because of my hold on myself. I repeated my attempts to breathe in the slow counting pattern of the synchronised breathing episode I watch with Mensah sometimes.
Something was still missing.
Raised head had sucked, so lowered head was the next option. That let the fluids rain down in an unpredictable pattern on my exposed data port. I could feel the fluids collecting in the divots but it didn’t make me choke or gasp, just an odd sensation of [foreign object in data port].
I lowered my head more until my entire body was crouching, my knees compressing the arms wrapped around my chest. I liked breathing into the tightness and pressure. I liked clenching and unclenching my hands where they had ended up around my waist.
Something was still missing and I had an idea of what it was. It wasn’t something on the list given to me or on the media, but it was something I had done before that had made the angry-upset feelings disappear. But if ART was still listening in I was going to feel really stupid because it was okay with Mensah but this was ART, and it was the reason I was feeling like this.
I mumbled it to myself first, quietly enough that the falling fluids drowned out my voice. That was a test run, to make sure I hadn’t forgotten the words (as if I could ever forget the words). But I thought I would start with something else first, that wasn’t so obvious to anyone listening.
“Stay calm.” I felt so stupid, “It will be okay. You have my word.”
I wasn’t feeling worse at least. I pressed myself tighter again and took another deep breath, then repeated the phrase.
Well, might as well go all out on looking stupid. Boldness is all, and all that. “I am breathing.”
I took another breath against the tight constrictions of my hands, focused on how the fluids muffled the sound and sensations.
“I am breathing. I am breathing.” I thought of when I said this out loud with Mensah. She had looked at me when I had spoken it, but it hadn’t been a bad look. She had been feeling upset-angry too and the episode had helped her the way it usually helped me. And that had felt good to see her calm down. I was just, adding. Extra steps to it.
I focused more on how the fluids felt against my neck and back, the reassuringly randomised pattern. “I am breathing. I am breathing. I am breathing the crystal air.”
I pictured the way Mensah had taken that last breath, with the long exhale, and imitated that. The weird sensation in my throat and internal organics had faded as I gripped myself and repeated the process.
I stopped watching the timer and let myself feel the process. This was nice. I wished Mensah was here, she would probably say something to me that would make it all make sense and melt the upset-angry away.
I was doing a pretty good job on my own though.
Enough that when I felt ART press itself lightly into my feed, I didn’t get tight or tense, I just opened my connection to it and let it try to sneak in (it felt like being squashed by a sudden intrusive weight). It wasn’t like the falling fluids, but it did make me feel muffled in my head to go with outside my head. It felt kind of like the pressure of my arms wrapped around me, a soothing constriction instead of making my chest go tight with stressful anxiety-defence spikes.
I breathed. Then I pressed into ART in the feed, tried to pretend I was making the same kind of grabbing motions with it as I did with my hands around my waist.
Do you feel better now? ART pressed back at me. I won’t do that again, I’ve made a plan for next time. Do you want to see?
Oh.
That was a lot of emotions.
I had to restart my self-soothing process all over again, this time with ART wrapped around me and waiting patiently until I was ready. I stumbled over my words a little with it listening, but it didn’t say anything, just connected to my filters and requested a health diagnostic. (I sent it.)
Yes, I’d like to see that.
It took me through its plan.
I think it noticed when I started using the ART-method for emotional content. (Every few lines, I paused to think about what I had read and what it meant. I appreciated that ART was so serious about helping me. It hadn’t made a single joke or laughed at me for my embarrassing emotional collapse over something so small and stupid-)
What I meant to say was: ART’s an asshole, but it isn’t always an asshole. (Don’t tell it that.)
I was feeling better too, and wanted to keep feeling better but this time with my friend.
Do you want to watch some Sanctuary Moon with me? I asked. I wanted to make a tally of all of Flight Supervisor Kogi’s appearances.