lovesbobbydarin | GENERAL MUSEBOXIN' POST

The Jon wasn't sure how long he'd been in this empty room - he'd never had a very good concept of time to begin with, and it seemed to stretch on for ages when when you were in captivity. He wasn't sure how he'd been kidnapped either, or for that matter why these scientists were so intent on opening him up and figuring out how he worked. Even the Walters barely understood the rift that powered him, and no matter how many times he'd tried to explain this to these new scientists, they refused to listen, and kept prying open his chestplate to poke around inside. All he knew was that he was scared, almost as scared as he'd been in the wars, his brothers weren't in range of the wifi, and he wanted to leave.

The last scientist who'd tried to look inside his chest cavity had slipped and almost fallen into the void, despite Jon's repeated warnings and pleas, and after recovering the man (the other scientists had pulled him out by the ankles), he'd been switched into temporary stasis mode and eventually woke up in here. No windows, just a cold, concrete room, a door that had been firmly locked, and now a Jon, curled up in the corner and seriously thinking about switching back into stasis mode.

No one could explain the appearance of yet another of the little brassy bots. If the female automaton had been asked, she would no doubt just blame the void, the usual cause of anything weird or unusual in life.

But no one was talking to her, and the poking and prodding, combined with the cold, sterile colors the scientists seemed saturated with just seemed to be spooking her. But she still didn't raise a hand against them, though she protested in a confused tone when she was herded down the hall and into a room, coming up to the door to push on it when she heard it locking from the outside, the scientists walking away.

"W-wait! I can't stay here, I have to be home for dinner! You guys wait!" She hadn't looked around the room she'd been pressed into, or she'd have seen the other bot huddled in the corner, and been really concerned.

"They're not gonna listen," The Jon mumbled. He had his arms looped around his knees, and was resting his forehead against them, so he hadn't actually seen his new cellmate yet. "That's what I said, too. I told them about curfew, and they didn't listen at all. It's like they don't care or something." From anyone else, that last statement would have sounded sarcastic. From The Jon, it just sounded puzzled and strangely hurt.

"I dunno when... they..." Whatever he'd been about to say trailed off into silence as he finally raised his head and caught sight of his new cellmate. Well. This was different. This was a new level of weird, even for him!

... Or her. Whichever.

"But... but if I miss curfew I'll get in trouble!" She protested, pouting as the door remained stubbornly locked. Huffing a soda-scented puff of steam, she turned to talk to the other in the room, only stopping when she saw a rather familiar mop of curly hair, plating, and blue optics.

Well. This was certainly new.

"...I... I didn't know I had a twin brother." She whispered, hands clasped uncertainly against her chest as she crept closer, the koi in her void swishing his tail uncertainly.

"... I didn't think I had a twin sister," he replied, cocking his head to one side. "I'm pretty sure I'd remember having one. I mean, I forget lots of stuff sometimes, but usually not people. 'Specially not family members."

He squinted at his female double, optics brightening in sudden suspicion. "... You're real, right? I'm not seeing things? You don't look like the pink elephants from last week, but sometimes when things are bad, it's harder to tell the real things from everything else."

She got closer, and shifted to plunk down on her knees to peer more closely at her double.

"Yeah... I wouldn't forget something like a brother, not when all my other siblings are sisters..." She pursed her lips in a pout, brow drawing slightly as she considered the problem, promptly raising again at his question.

"Of course I'm real! I can even-" She drew a hand over to put one fingertip against his nose before snatching it back with a startled squeak and falling back onto her rear with a thunk.

"You're real too!"

He jerked back as well, knocking his head against the wall with a matching clank.

"You're really real! Where'd you come from? I don't remember anyone building you, and Peter Six didn't say he was gonna make any new 'bots! What's your name? Oh, wait! Wait, I bet I can guess! You look like me, soooo... are you The Joan? The Jess? The Jenny? No, Jenny was the toaster..."

She shook her head at all the guesses, just watching her counterpart with wide optics.

"Nu-uh! I'm The Jon!" She replied, studying the male bot curiously. "I got made after Rabbit and The Spine! What about you?"

She was still going on the 'secret twin' theory at the moment, give it a little and the other ideas might come to her.

"That's me, I'm The Jon, and Rabbit and The Spine are my brothers!" The Jon had uncurled himself, and was sitting up on his knees, leaning forward to stare at his strange new twin. "Is everybody a girl where you're from?" A beat. "... Where are you from, anyway? San Diego? Or is it Ogeid Nas...?"

He was slowly veering away from the secret twin theory, and into something approaching a 'crazy alternate universe' theory. They'd get there eventually!

Well at least he wasn't quite so upset looking for the moment. The colors were there still, but for the moment curiosity was holding center stage.

"Rabbit and The Spine are my sisters! And we're from San Diego!" She let out a soft thoughtful 'hum', considering the puzzle.

"I dunno if we're twins... there's too much different. But there's too much alike for us not to be family somehow!" And really to her, that was the important part.

The curiousity was a welcome distraction, however long it lasted!

"Jeez, I wonder what they'd look like as girls..." The Jon mused, letting a wisp of steam escape from the side of his mouth. "You're right, though. We can be brother and sister, or cousins twice removed on our uncle's side. We're something, anyway."

... And that meant that his sister-cousin-somethingorother was trapped in the same place he was. The Jon's mood fell the instant this occurred to him, the colours around him losing saturation and warping into a deep, anxious blue. "... We're both gonna miss curfew."

Oh hey she sees that there. She sees that!

"Well... I think The Spine and Rabbit won't get too mad at us... this time anyways, cause it's not our faults!" She tried to reassure her counterpart, little wisps of a comforting sort of lavender streaking through her own anxious swirl. "I mean, we told em about curfew and these meanies won't listen."

"Y-yeah... but..." He glanced away and the blue darkened even further, swirling around his head in a thickening cloud as thoughts that he really, really didn't want to think about began to rise to the surface. "I dunno when they're gonna let us go. We might miss more than one curfew, if they keep poking at us."

The Jon's gaze flicked up towards his double again, and he bit his lip uncertainly, trying to think of the right way to phrase the question. "Did you just... just get here? Did the guys in the labcoat already look at you and try to poke around in the void?"

The girl bot just sat with an unhappy puff of steam, glancing back at the door uncertainly.

"I... I got here and they made me let them look at it but they didn't touch it or anything... just brought me in here." She replied softly, that worry in her counterpart just feeding into hers.

"...How long have you been in here?"

"... I dunno," he finally mumbled, beginning to curl back in on himself. "I was in here for a while, and then I was out there," A brief wave towards the door, indicating the rest of the building, "... And then I was in here again. I think... I think I might've already missed one or two curfews. I was in stasis for a while though, so I kinda lost track of time. Without any clocks or windows, it's hard to tell."

"That long?" The female bot whispered, optics wide as she glanced back at the door again before nudging herself right on in to cling to the other bot, koi flicking nervously about in her void.

"Maybe? I dunno, I'm not very good at keeping track of time even when somebody gives me a watch." Not that that happened very often, considering The Jon's track record. That clinging hug came as a surprise, but he instantly returned it, looping his skinny arms around her and letting out a steamy sigh.

"... We'll get out, though. Either they'll get bored, or somebody will almost fall in again, or the others will come get us."

"Rabbit an Spine'll find us for sure." She agreed, just burrowing in there with her counterpart.

She hugged who she wanted. And besides, this was technically her, just as a boy right? Almost like having a brother!

"Who do you think'll show up first? Mine, or yours?" A brief pause, as he considered this strange mental image. "... Or maybe both of 'em at the same time, then they'd get to see themselves as ladies!"

"Or maybe it'll be like on Scooby Doo and they'll keep narrowly missing seeing each other until they get in here with us!"

Welp, it could happen.

"Marshmallow could be the dog!" he cried, finally brightening up. The very mention of Scooby Doo made him grin, the first genuine smile in what felt like ages. "Only he'd be about ten times the size of the one in the show. Hey, maybe there'd be two Marshmallows, we could ride 'em outta here!"

"That'd be awesome! All the scientists would run away when they saw Marshmallows!" It really did make her feel a bit better to make her twin smile, especially with how unhappy he seemed in this awful place.

"Spiiiiiiiiiine!" The call echoed through the halls of Walter Manor. Three was on the hunt for his older brother, roaming through the twisting halls and checking every empty room, closet, and laboratory that he could find. Spine was difficult to find when he wanted to be left alone, but Three was determined to track down the silver automaton for some playtime today.

It wasn't that he didn't want to play with Rabbit - Three got along with his oldest brother wonderfully, following him around the family estate like an eager puppy and falling head-first (literally, in some cases) into any adventures or games that the oldest bot could come up with. Spine, though... Spine was a different matter. Three was beginning to think that his other older brother didn't like him much, although he never got any solid answers when he asked Rabbit about it - just a pat on the head and some grumbling, usually followed by the sound of his brothers fighting soon after. He must have done something wrong, and the sooner Three could find Spine and fix things, the sooner they'd get along.

"Spiiiiine!" he tried again. "Where are you? Are we playing hide and seek? You're really good at it!" Being extra-nice might help, right?

Needless to say, The Spine was not at all impressed with gaining a new baby brother.

Especially with how easily Rabbit warmed to him, after the way that he'd had to fight for his older brother's affection. It wasn't fair! So he spent more time in his room, more time away from the rest of the family so he didn't have to see how easily the beaming bot had fit in, or how readily the family accepted him.

When he heard the bot in question calling him, he hunkered further down in his chair with an irritated huff of steam, optics dimming slightly.

Maybe if The Jon didn't see him he'd go away.

Sorry Spine, no such luck. Soon enough, Three's strange smokestack (steamstack?) of a head peered around the doorway, a hopeful, bright smile on his golden face-plates.

"Found you!" he chirped. "You were hiding in your room this whole time? I thought you'd hide in one of the closets, or maybe the lab. I guess the room's a good hiding place too, since it's the last place I looked!"

He trailed off, and that cheery expression went momentarily blank. "... Are we playing hide and seek?" Whoops, somebody still wasn't quite lucid yet...

Horsefeathers, the little bot hadn't gotten distracted on his hunt. The Spine just sunk lower into the chair he'd settled in, raising his book a few pointed inches, letting the brassy bot ramble on unimpeded with a frown.

"...Nope." Whoops, someone wasn't very sociable.

The Spine's blunt tone and distinctly unfriendly body language sailed clear over Three's brassold head, although it took a few confused seconds for his usual spacey grin to click back into place. Subtlety wasn't really a concept that Three understood at this point, and anything less than a totally direct answer would have him pestering Spine for ages.

"Do you want to? I'm really good at hiding! I already found you, so it'd be your turn this time. Or... I guess if we weren't playing before, and we started playing now, it'd be my turn to look again..." He trotted inside the room and rested his arms on the back of the armchair, then settled his chin in his arms. Steam wisped out of his head, drifting thoughtfully up towards the ceiling. "... Or we could play something else, if you want."

... Maybe The Spine didn't like playing hide and seek. That was probably it.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair!

Why did this brassy little interloper instantly get accepted and loved by Rabbit? Why did he get to so easily charm the family, be fawned over? With an irritated snort of steam, he pulled the book up a bit higher.

"Go away."

Oh.

Well.

That was certainly direct enough to get through to him.

Three's smile slowly faded, the edges of his face-plates tilting downwards in a confused, hurt expression that made him look a bit like a robotic puppy that had just been kicked. It wasn't just the hopscotch - apparently he'd been right about Spine disliking him after all.

"... 'Kay," he mumbled softly. Three stepped away from the chair, turned around, and walked out of the room entirely, letting the door swing shut behind him with a light click. If Spine wanted to be left alone, then he wouldn't hear a sound from Three for the rest of the day... maybe even longer. This was something that Three wouldn't be able to forget so easily.

Of course Rabbit finding out about this sparked one of the biggest fights between the titanium bot and his elder that anyone in the family could remember. They both shouted, Rabbit threw things, and finally, The Spine stormed out, slamming what few doors there were in the manor behind him.

No one thought much about it.

At least until dinnertime rolled around, and the silver bot was stil nowhere to be found.

If there was one thing that Three had learned in his short existence, it was to stay out of the way when his older brothers were fighting. This latest row had him hiding inside the nearest wardrobe, half-buried in a nest of fur coats with his spindly hands clamped over his ears as he tried to muffle the shouting. He hadn't meant to let Rabbit know what had happened, but with Three wandering the halls looking so lost and dejected, it hadn't been hard for his eldest brother to guess, and if there was one thing that Three was worse at than subtlety, it was lying.

This was all his fault. His fault that The Spine didn't like him, his fault that his brothers were fighting again, his fault that The Spine had left and hadn't come back yet. What if he was gone for good?

Gradually, Three crept out of the wardrobe, and managed to edge out the back door unnoticed while the other family members began preparing to search for his missing brother. It was his fault, so he should be the one to fix the situation. Maybe if he found The Spine first, he'd be able to apologize properly.

"... The Spine?" He called out across the backyard, as quietly as he could manage. Calling somebody's name while trying not to be loud was hard, okay?

GENERAL MUSEBOXIN' POST

OH GOD, IT'S LIKE KICKING A GOLDEN RETRIEVER PUPPY

IT REALLY IS

WE ARE BAD AND WE SHOULD FEEL BAD

AND YET I DON'T 8B

WE GET GOLD STARS IN HORRIBLENESS

P.H.DS EVEN

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BABY ROBUTS GO HERE

WEH BABBY ROBUTS

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