Benny was piecing a miniature rocket together, trying to ignore the silence of the empty apartment, when the door rattled and B breezed into the room. The scent of blood and burning plastic trailed after him.

"'m fine," he said, by way of greeting.

"You're a big liar, is what you are."

B walked straight to the kitchen sink, nudged the cold tap, rolled up one sleeve, and thrust his forearm under the water. Immediately, a cloud of steam billowed upwards, and as it hissed, the water running off his arm turned red as blood.

"Hey—-" Benny was on his feet, scrambling over the chairs and couch. "When I said you were waterproof, man, I didn't mean you're that waterproof." B curled his fingers into a fist and gritted his teeth. Something in his arm popped, sparked, and was extinguished by the water. "Seriously!" Catching his toe on the edge of the carpet, the astronaut stumbled, yelped, almost fell. "Gravity—-" he hissed as he righted himself.

For the first time, B shifted, raising his head. "Benny," he began, but got no further before the smaller man ducked around him and twisted the tap closed with a sharp flick of his wrist.

The water spurted, then stopped.

As the steam melted away, Benny saw B clearly for the first time. A broad, long scrape ran from ear to jaw, as though his cheek had been ground into a brick wall. His nose was bruised, blueish. And the arm he had thrust under the water had been rent from wrist to elbow, deep enough that it exposed the delicate wiring underneath the layers of fake skin and veins. The coolant - colored red like blood, to kill two birds with one stone - was swiftly leaking out, leaving the arm cold and grey.

"C'mere." Benny reached out for the cop's uninjured hand. "Water's gonna make you short-circuit. It feels good 'cause you're losing coolant and you're overheating, but it isn't gonna fix anything. You gotta let me do it. That's why I'm—-"

"No."

"No?" He tugged on B's hand, hard, but could not move it. "What do you mean, no? Can you just sit down for five seconds?"

B brushed him off easily. "No means no, Ben."

"Good thing that word's not in my vocabulary."

"Ben."

Benny blew out a sharp, exasperated breath of air, then turned and stood on his tiptoes, opening up the kitchen cabinet nearest to him. "Please, B." He pulled a bowl from off the shelf. "I'm serious." Closing the cabinet, Benny held the bowl under the injured arm. Drops of coolant began to drip into the bowl instead of falling to the floor.

The cop stared at the bowl as though it were made of worms. One lip twisted up slightly, and he clenched his fist harder. But he did not pull away.

"C'mon. Talk to me, B."

"'m fine. Can hardly feel it." The cop turned his wrist experimentally from side to side, and Benny watched his face closely for any signs of pain. "A little more water and it'll be fine. Y'don't have t'worry."

"A little more water and you'll fry yourself. B—" It was all Benny could do to keep himself from breaking out into a lecture. He talked when he was nervous. Talked and talked and talked. And seeing B hurt, feeling the bowl grow a little heavier with every drop that fell into it, made him nervous. "I'm here to worry." He reached out, pressing his fingers gently against B's hand. "They assigned me to you to take care of you, man."

The cop shook his head. He ground his teeth. Benny wondered suddenly whether he had hit a nerve with his fingers or his words, and pulled back. "I didn't ask f'r you," B muttered.

His words, then.

"Didn't ask f'r you t'worry. Y'came t'me, not me t'you. I didn't even know who - what - I was. And I didn't know y'were assigned to this. Thought you really wanted t'be my—-" Closing his mouth, B took the bowl from Benny's hands, turned, sat down at one of the kitchen chairs.

Benny waited.

The slow dripping of the coolant filled the spaces between their breaths. Out of the corner of his eye, Benny watched the rise and fall of B's chest, the angry flare of his nostrils, the set of his lips. Not for the first time, he was overcome by the beauty of him. The talent that had gone into the creation of the skin, the pores, and each hair fiber of Business' AIs was unfathomable, but B — B was a masterpiece. He was a symphony of wires and welding and relays faster than human synapses. Basic programs had been foregone in favor of elegant, interlocking codes that made B smile. Made him laugh. Made him hurt and sulk and sit there, his eyes fixed on the table, as though daring Benny to take one step closer to him.

Made him human.

Somewhere - Benny didn't know where, couldn't even begin to guess where - B had ceased to be artificial. He had come alive. They had built him to believe he was human. Memories were implanted in his head: gardens, a childhood, parents, the taste of bread, the smell of new school uniforms. They had let him believe that he, too, was made of flesh and blood. And all was well, besides Business and the business with the Builders, until Benny, who had never known how to keep a secret, told him what he was—-

The astronaut licked his lips. Drew a breath. "Is that what this is about?"

B raised his eyes from the table to the ceiling.

"All of this?" Benny pushed. "You, coming home late. Working too hard. Getting hurt and not doing anything about it. This self-destructive thing you've got going on - is it because you think you're 'just a robot'? Because you think it's okay to do that to yourself because you're not human ?"

Silence.

"Is it?" he prompted.

"—Yes an' no."

"Well, I hope it's more no than yes, because that's bull." B's mouth tightened into a thin line but Benny pressed on: "All of it. I'm serious. It's nuts. You can't just—"

"Ben."

"No, B, listen. Maybe those memories aren't real, and maybe your parents aren't either. But you are."

Running a finger along the edge of the wound, the cop winced for the first time, almost flinched, then hid it. He made a show of taking stock of the injury, pretending not to listen.

"I don't have proof, and I dunno how to make you believe me, but - god - I really wish I did. Running yourself into the ground isn't gonna fix anything. And your problems aren't gonna get solved like this, either." Benny tugged at his too-long hair, frustrated, as B toyed with a protruding wire. "You're going to make it worse!" he said, voice strangled. "Can you just let me fix you? And then can we talk about this? Because, yes, I did only start talking to you because I was assigned by those provisional government guys to do your maintenance. And yeah, okay, I was just interested at first because your design is, really honestly, awesome. But not anymore. You're—" A moment's hesitation. "—important to me, B. You! Not your wiring. Not your programs. Even if they are really cool."

He spoke faster and faster, tripping over his words in an effort to get them all out. "It's not about the machinery anymore. I don't know how you can expect me to just sit here and watch you burn yourself up. I mean, I know I'm into stars, and I would totally appreciate the supernova metaphor you've got going here if it weren't for the fact that the star dies at the end of that. C'mon, B, please. And don't touch that!" The lecture finished with a yelp from the astronaut as B tugged on something long and dark. Several sparks leapt high into the air. A glowing tail of light trailed behind them as they flickered, faded, then vanished entirely.

There was a long moment of silence like a tribute to the dead.

Slowly, B uncurled his fingers. The chair creaked as he turned it, its legs scraping the kitchen floor. Without a word, he held out his hand to Benny.

The engineer gestured placatingly. "Wait there. Two seconds." He dashed off to the couch, where his tools were scattered where he had left them. They stabbed at him, poking at his rubs, his arms, but he did not stop to neaten them.

Metal struck metal as he poured them down onto the table. B winced at the noise. Benny took no notice. Nudging a pair of pliers that were threatening to fall back onto the table, he sat down in the chair beside B. "Hand?"

Without protest, the cop extended his arm. Benny took it gently between his thumb and fingers, tilting it towards the light. He sighed.

"What?"

Benny shook his head. "B, man," he said, and his voice was oddly tired, "you gotta be more careful."

B ran his good hand along the side of his face and through his hair. "I'll try," he said after a long pause.

"Do. Or do not," quoted Benny, lowering his voice to a poor imitation of Yoda's. "There is no try." He flicked his gaze up to the cop's face, waiting for a smile, a laugh, a groan. There was no reaction. B's eyes were fixed on Benny's hands, watching every tiny movement, every turn, every bend. The astronaut sighed. "No one gets my references." He picked up a small pair of pliers, then paused. He held it a moment. His hand did not shake. "Hold still. I'll patch you up as best I can, okay, B?"

"Alright."

Benny turned his attention to the injury. Tongue between his teeth, he set to work, twisting wires into place and fastening each piece where it belonged. Silence filled the emptiness between them. It was heavy with the weight of all the things they were not saying. Benny purposefully set tools down a little loudly from time to break the monotony of it. Sometimes, he hummed a strain of a song. Mostly, he worked in silence.

But from time to time, if he listened carefully, Benny almost thought he could hear the beating of B's electric heart, louder than a human's but no less alive. Then he would pause a moment and wonder what it would be like to fall asleep with his ear pressed to the cop's chest, just listening to the music of the machinery beneath B's skin. Then, gingerly, he would pick up his tools and continue piecing B together again.