Archive of Our Own ^beta

Taniks hated the stupid shank body. Not just because he wasn’t able to join the cuddle pile (which, whatever. He’d been gone for three years anyways, they probably liked it better without him), or because he couldn’t even lay down, but just because he hated flying. Being high up in ships was fine, but for some reason, when it was just his torso hanging off the front of some fucked up SIVA-shank, fear gripped him, and he hated it. He knew he wouldn’t fall off, so why was he so terrified of going higher than a few feet? 

Taniks hated it. He hated everything.

He couldn’t pull his helmet off anymore. In the crash, SIVA must have fused it to his head for some reason. Maybe his skull cracked open. It didn’t really matter, since he couldn’t sleep anyways. He was too angry, it felt like molten lava inside him.

At one point through the second night after Praksis had brought him back, Taniks had tried to rip himself off of the shank. He’d torn a small piece of his torso away, only for SIVA to splurt out like blood, like webbing, yanking him back down and bubbling over the rupture to seal it.

Taniks screamed. He didn’t know what else to do. 

Praksis had said he would find a way to make him new legs, but it would take a while to build and figure out a way to make the SIVA inside Taniks’ body give up the shank. Taniks hated waiting. He felt so wrong. Maybe necrosis had finally set in on the few organic bits he had left. He’d been dead for three years, after all. Maybe his brain was rotting away. The stupid human AI had locked the Crypt, so even if his rotting brain could be put into a robot body like Atraks, they wouldn’t be able to anyways. Stupid humans. Stupid Guardians. They should have let him crash the ship into Eventide. It’s what they deserved.

Atraks didn’t seem scared of him when she let him out of that pod, and he wasn’t sure if that made him happy or furious.

He kind of missed the pod, actually. It was comfortable. Maybe he just missed being able to lay down.

Atraks had been confused when Taniks woke up, unable to even speak, overcome with rage upon seeing that Guardian again, that Guardian that was always there to fight and kill him. Taniks hated them so much. He wanted to win. He wanted to crush their tiny little Machine in his hands, and then crush their skull.

Taniks liked Atraks. She was clever for one so young. He was glad that she’d been smart enough to avoid being killed, smart enough to know when running was the only option. She said she’d let them kill her decoys, so they’d think she was dead. Guardians were stupid like that.

Hm. Maybe he did have brain damage. His thoughts felt just as disjointed as the rest of him. Praksis couldn’t exactly check, after all. He’d just told Taniks to get some rest. He was lucky Eramis liked him, or he might have… no, that’s not something he should think about. He didn’t know Praksis well, but Eramis liked him, so Taniks wouldn’t kill him.

Taniks wished he could sleep. After waking up alive again, surviving a crash into the moon, getting up with half his body missing and replaced by a fucked up heavy shank, and then kind of (but not really) dying again, he was starting to feel a little tired. Could Atraks sleep? She was a real robot, an Exo, and he was just so many machine parts still attached to an organic frame. If a Servitor’s shell was replaced again and again, was it still the same Servitor you originally built? He still felt like Taniks. Sleep-deprived, angry, exhausted Taniks. He didn’t think that being in a real robot body would change that, but he would probably never know now. Unless Praksis figured out how to re-invent the tech from the Crypt. Praksis seemed pretty smart, maybe he could do it.

God, Taniks was tired. He didn’t have a way to tell time, but he hoped morning would come soon. Then he could talk to Eramis again.

“These fucking suck,” Taniks hissed. “Why bother making these? I was better off with the shank!”

“Oh, hush,” Eramis said, arm wrapped underneath his primaries, practically carrying him along. “Praksis is working on a set of real legs, these are just temporary. He already said that.”

Taniks snarled as he tripped over his own horrible wire-frame legs. Eramis caught him easily.

“You’ll feel better after you actually get some sleep,” she said.

“Easy for you to say.”

“Oh, stop the dramatics.”

“Dramatics?” Taniks yelled. “Have you been paying attention to all the bullshit that’s been happening?”

“Taniks, I got encased in ice a couple of days ago, we’re all having a rough time of it,” Eramis growled, hefting him up again as his legs buckled beneath him. “What matters is that we stick together. We’re stronger that way.”

Taniks grumbled. “Still can’t believe that Guardian didn’t kill any of you.”

“I’m pretty sure they were going to kill me,” Eramis said. “If the Darkness hadn’t expressed its own discontent, that is.”

Taniks’ optics flickered. “The what? The Darkness? You were fucking around with the shit that destroyed our planet?”

Eramis glared at him. “Our planet died because the Great Machine decided it had better things to do than help us,” she said, then sighed. “But the Darkness was using us as well. We’re better off with just ourselves. I see that now.”

Taniks was silent for a while as they walked through Riis-Reborn. It reminded him of home. 

“You did a good job building this,” he said after a few minutes.

“I’m no builder,” Eramis said. “Some of the captains that joined our cause were old enough to remember our home. They were the ones who made our new city.”

“Most of them have left, huh?” Taniks asked.

Eramis was quiet for long enough that Taniks thought she may not respond. Then, she said, “We’re better off with just each other. That’s how it’s always been.”

“Fine by me,” Taniks hummed. “I like you idiots better than pretty much anyone. Though, that’s not saying much.”

“Sure,” Eramis said, laughter in her voice. “We’re almost there, but the staircase up to the nest is pretty big.”

Had Taniks less pride, he might have whined about it. As it stood, he just said, “If you have to drag me up the stairs, I’m killing Praksis when I see him.”

“I’ll be sure to give him warning before we reach the door,” Eramis said. “Now, up you go.”

Taniks did not yell as she scooped him up. He was proud and noble. He didn’t squirm and try to get away, either. Definitely not.

“Stop that,” Eramis growled, “if I drop you and you fall all the way down the stairs, I am not picking you back up. You can crawl the rest of the way.”

Taniks froze and gripped her cloak. “You wouldn’t do that to your favorite mate.”

Eramis barked a laugh. “I don’t pick favorites. Nice try.”

Taniks crossed his secondary arms and growled wordlessly, his primaries gripping Eramis’ cloak tightly the whole climb up. 

“I should ask Praksis to make a teleporter,” Eramis huffed as she reached the top. “Not that I can’t carry you, but for your own dignity.”

“What, am I heavier than I look?” Taniks asked, hand to his chest.

“I could carry three of you and never lose my breath,” Eramis scoffed. 

“Ooh, sounds fun,” Taniks said. Eramis put him down gently on his feet, holding him close. 

“Come on, you. The others are waiting.”

Taniks almost immediately fell. Eramis hauled him back up. Taniks sighed. “Just between you and me,” he said, “maybe I’m okay with being carried the rest of the way.”

Eramis laughed. “Maybe I’m alright with carrying you the rest of the way, too,” she said, sweeping him up into her arms again. Her pace was much more leisurely now that she wasn’t scaling stairs, and Taniks wondered if she really could carry three of them. Maybe Praksis and Kridis as well as him. They were smaller. But Eramis was strong, maybe she could even carry Atraks, too- was Atraks heavier now? She had to be, right? Since she was a robot… 

Taniks stopped paying attention, thinking about Eramis and how strong she was. And her arms, her hands. What they could do. They were very distracting, really. He jumped when someone else touched him, and realized they were already in the nesting room.

“Hey, welcome back,” Phylaks purred. Eramis set Taniks in the middle of the nest, headbutting him affectionately. 

Taniks sputtered. “Not like I had a choice,” he said half-heartedly. The others were already scooting around him. Eramis took up his left side, Phylaks and Kridis on his right. Other than Praksis sprawling across his chest, the positions were familiar and comfortable.

“Where’s Atraks?” He asked.

“Safe,” Kridis answered, at the same time as Phylaks, who said “Practicing her robot magic.”

Taniks snickered. Phylaks shoved him into Eramis, who snapped her jaws at them both, and they all settled down comfortably.

Taniks was happy to be back home.