A/N: Hm, well, first fanfiction in a while. Seems like I always say that whenever I make a new fic, doesn't it?

Anyway, Futurama.

This is a fic about it. Specifically some Bender and Fry friendship stuff, since I find their relationship quite interesting.

Also, this fic is pretty depressing. Yay?

Not much else to say, I guess, except… enjoy?

--

It was quiet, but then it always was. It always had been ever since he moved out. Truthfully it wasn't much different from before he came; the noises were the same, at least. The soft (and occasionally loud) sound of the television could often be heard in the background, even if nothing was being watched. This was accompanied by the harmonies of beer chugging, glass breaking, and the puffing of cigars.

Nope. Nothing was that different.

Except how empty it was. Sure, all of the furniture that humans apparently needed was still there; he hadn't taken it with him. But it was still hallow, somehow. It was so clean, so tidy and so devoid of life.

Just like it was before he entered his life… or non-life. Whatever robots lived.

It didn't even feel like that long ago that the skin tube still lived there. Doing those weird human things he did, like bleeding, and crying. He did a lot of both of those over that big booted Cyclops. So, it was only logical to assume that they would never work out.

So that's why it was strangely surreal to hear the word that the meatbag so wanted to hear: 'Yes'.

"Please, Leela?" he was begging, once more, slouched on the couch next to him, looking up pitifully at the purple haired mutant in front of him. "Just one date? I promise I won't embarrass you in front of the waiter, this time."

The female sighed, predictably. It wasn't even worth his time to watch, so he wasn't. "Fry," Leela responded, looking exasperated, "You're sweet, but you're just-" She paused, frowning at the pathetic look on the young man's face. "Oh… alright, just one date."

"Why won't you just give me a chance, Leela? I know that we – wait… did you say… 'yes'?" the orange haired human… Fry… asked, voice breaking slightly as he finished his question.


"Actually, I said 'alright' but it's the same basic answer," the woman replied glibly with a shrug. This was instantly greeted with a sudden WAHOO from the man next to him, who popped up with no respect for any robots who may have been near him.

"Hey, watch it!" the robot shouted, shoving the man next to him roughly to the floor. "I'm trying to drink here."

Clamoring up again to resume the goofy dance that had been ensuing, the human only paused briefly to give him a quick. "Sorry, Bender!"

Yeah, well he didn't sound sorry. He didn't sound sorry at all.

'Sorry, Bender.' Was a phrase the bending robot heard all too much after that. All because their stupid date went off without a hitch. How was he to know that their evening would be beautiful and romantic? If he had, he would have sabotaged it.

"But I thought we were supposed to hang around and do nothing, like always?" Bender asked, pointing to the human suspiciously. He was all dressed up, and not just the normal kind of dressed up. Really dressed up. Fry had even put on some sort of cologne.

"Oh, yeah," was the response, as though he had completely forgotten. "Sorry, Bender, but I have a date with Leela tonight," he explained, adjusting the lapels on his jacket.

"You just had a date with her last month, don't you think you've had enough?" the robot accused, narrowing his eyes angrily.

"Nah, Leela's great!" Fry said, turning around to face his friend. "We always talk about things and stuff, and also junk."

"But…we could talk about things and stuff…" Bender muttered sullenly.

"What was that?" the man called from the hallway. "I'm gonna be late! Seeya, Bender!"

"Yeah… Seeya…"

Leaning farther back into old, faded couch where they used to sit, Bender glanced over to the doorway. It was still easy to imagine Fry's figure standing there, pronged hair and all. It was even easier to remember the last time he called this place his home.

"Bender! Bender!" excited calls woke him from a simulated sleeping experience, mumbling incoherently, the robot opened his eyes to see the face of Fry pressed up against his. Shocked, he stumbled backwards, although that was rather impossible in a room as small as his.

"Wh-whata – wag?" Bender rambled, before realizing what was going on and responding appropriately. "Oh, it's you," he stated, relaxing visibly.

"It sure is!" Fry exclaimed with a ludicrous amount of excitement. "Guess what, Bender! Guess, guess!"

"Eh, I dunno," Bender replied nonchalantly, before hopefully musing. "You broke up with Leela and you've come crawling back to your old pal, Bender?"

"Nope! But close!" the human answered, still beaming. "I proposed to Leela for the fifth time today … And this time she actually said yes!"

"Yeah, that's great, … what?"

"We're getting married!" Fry enforced, not noticing the horrified expression on his best friend's face. "And I want you to be my best man! …Will you?"

"Uh… I…" Bender hesitated, "Yeah, sure, buddy…" He finally agreed, and was immediately pulled into a grateful hug. "So, big boots is moving in with us?"

Fry just laughed as though what his robotic friend had just asked was incredibly silly. "Of course not! I'm moving in with her!"

"Oh…" was the only response.

The wedding was a typical affair. It was just like any of the other times Fry and Leela got married, or almost did. And it would have been easy enough to foil. And he thought about it many times, but, strangely, he just couldn't do that to Fry. It was rare that he would ever put anyone else's happiness above his own but… they were both so jubilant… not that he really cared about Leela.

Still, for once, Bender's conscious was acting up, and he allowed the wedding to go on as planned. After that, everything went by in a blur:

Fry and Leela's first child.

Then their second.

Fry quitting his job to take care of them.

Leela moving on to a higher paying job to take care of them.

It had all happened so fast that it was easy to forget that they wouldn't be at Planet Express when he entered the building everyday. The only person that bothered to greet him was Zoidberg and that was worse than not being greeted at all. Needless to say, Bender stopped coming to work altogether.

And what was there to do, after that? He contemplated taking a trip to a suicide booth, but decided it was too much work. It probably wouldn't work, anyway; he was a robot, after all. Instead, he lay around his apartment, deliriously sober. What was the point in drinking, anyway? He wasn't going to do anything. Nobody cared about ol' Bender, anymore.

Mumbling to himself, the robot jolted up, shocked, when the phone rang for the first time in a while. Normally it was just a telemarketer, or someone calling to yell at him for being a moral-less, horrid robot. So he was confused when he picked it up, and stared at it blearily for a moment.

"Bender? Bender! Are you there, or did the owls learn how to pick up the phone again?" a familiar voice asked from the other end.

Bender let out a confused mumble, trying to focus on the words the other had spoken.. "Fry?" he questioned quietly, "Is that you?"

"Yeah!" the voice on the other end answered, before pausing. "…Well… I think it's me…" he continued in a dubious manner, "Let me check."

Another pause.

"Yeah, it's me," Fry answered definitively, "So, Bender, what up?"

The answer was not immediate. The only noise that greeted Fry was the noise of bottles clinking and the clamoring of Bender as he hurried to drink as much as he could. After several loud glugs and crashing bottles, the orange haired man frowned. "Bender, have you been drinking… er, I mean, not drinking. That's how it works with robots, right?"

"What, me? Bender? Nah, never, you're crazy, Fry," Bender answered easily, waving a metallic hand in front in dismissal.

"Oh, okay," Fry gave a verbal shrug. "Hey, wanna do something this Saturday?"

The question was so abrupt that the robot just held the phone to his head for a moment. "…Really? You… really want to do something?" Bender asked in disbelief. If he had a heart it would have been beating furiously for the answer.

"Hell yeah!" said the man on the other end, this was followed by some giggling and a 'Fry!' in the background. "Oh… oops…"

"Who are you talking to, Fry?" Leela demanded. Bender could recognize that bossy mutant's voice any where.

"Uh, hang on a sec, Bender," Fry hissed into the phone. Normally, someone would cup their hand over the mouth piece, but the human didn't seem to realize that this was important or necessary.

Well, all the better for him.

"Bender?" Leela seemed shocked, and maybe a bit disapproving.

Disprove of him, will she?

"Yeah, I was just making plans for Saturday with him and –"

"Fry, we had plans that night," the purple haired woman said. "We were going out to dinner."

"Oh…" the friends sighed simultaneously.

"But couldn't we, I dunno, take him to dinner with us?" There was silence on the line.

Leela groaned. "Oh, alright," she reluctantly agreed.

Both cheered at this answer.

"Alright! Bender's getting his buddy back!"

Yeah, that would have been great. If things could have went back to the way they were… that would have been perfect.

But it didn't. And it never would.

Bender exhaled, even though he didn't breathe. Dully, he picked himself off of the couch and shuffled over toward the window. Looking down to the city below, he pinpointed the building where that idea had been squashed out.

Elzar's, the swankiest restaurant in all of New New York. And he would be dining there, tonight! The notion caused Bender to tilt back and forth on his foot cups in anticipation. He was waiting right outside that building. He had been waiting for a couple of hours; he had gotten there early.

But so what?

He was going to see his best friend again, after all this time. What was a few hours, anyway?

It was nothing to him. …Although, he had to admit, these few hours felt quite a bit longer than they usually did. And he would constantly check his internal time clock. They weren't late, and they would show up.

They would.

And they did. Several minutes early, actually. Both of them were dressed in formal attire, and as they approached, Bender vaguely noticed Leela's eye widen. Doubtlessly surprised that he was here so early. But she wasn't the one he was paying attention to.

"Oof!" Fry exclaimed suddenly, as Bender rammed into him for a near bone-breaking hug. "Bender…my…lungs…" he rasped, trying to wriggle his arms out of the robots vice grip to return the hug.

After that greeting had been exchanged, Leela piped up. "Nice to see you again, Bender," she said, before adding with mild suspicion, "How long have you been waiting here?"

"I just got here, meatbag," Bender said, nonchalantly lighting up a cigar as the three entered Elzar's.

What followed was typical dinner banter. It almost felt as though this was one of the old company dinners that they used to go on.

So, he supposed that it would be as good of a time as ever to ask what he wanted to ask.

"Yeah, that's great and all," Bender shooed off a comment about their family life. "But wouldn't it be even better if I moved in?" He questioned, leaning in closer to the table.

"Yeah it would!" was Fry's immediate response, but he faltered at the look that his wife was giving him. "Uh…"

Shaking her head, Leela glanced back at her former co-worker. "Listen, Bender, -"

Knowing full well what was coming, he cut her off. "But, I could… uh… I could be your refrigerator!" he suggested, standing up and opening his chest cavity to reveal a switch that said 'refrigerate' as well as 'e-z bake'. "OR, I could be your oven! You'd save money on kitchen appliances!"

Waiting until Bender was finished, the woman continued where she had left off. "You're great to hang out with when you're a single loner," she explained gently, watching the robot slink back into his seat. "But… we have a family, now. We have kids we have to think of… and… Bender, you're… you're a bad influence."

"But, Leela," Fry tried to help, but was stopped.

"And, you, Fry, you become a bad influence around Bender!" Leela accused.

"But-"

"No, Fry, I'm putting my foot down on this," Leela said, literally putting her foot down as she stood up. "We're going now."

"But…" this time it wasn't Fry, it was Bender. It was said so quietly that he was surprised that Leela even picked up on it.

"…We had a wonderful time… goodnight, Bender. It was nice seeing you, again."

"…goodnight…"

Leela had meant what she said. She wanted nothing to do with him, after that. She didn't even want Fry to hang out with him. Sure, the skintube would call once and a while, and at the beginning he was willing to sneak out to get a few beers with him. But that stopped quickly enough. There were often problems with the kids that needed to be tended to, surprisingly even more so as they grew older.

But, then, finally it seemed to reach a point where the kids wouldn't be a problem; they had gone off to college.

And so they had scheduled to meet at O'Zorgnax's for a couple of drinks.

But it wasn't the same.

Fry was… different.

He had wrinkles, now. He was tired looking, but it was satisfied at the same time. He wasn't as loud as he had been. Or as impulsive. He was more careful, he was more appropriate, he was more mature.

And he wasn't Fry.

Bender, himself, hadn't changed. He was a robot. He had been the same since the moment he was built. He was still Fry's best friend.

But Fry wasn't his best friend, because he was a human.

Humans changed, humans aged, and humans would die.

And Fry did.

It was nothing spectacular. He had simply been in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and had ended up on the business end of a rocket explosion.

And that was it.

He was dead. Turanga Phillip J. Fry was dead. Bender glanced over at the flower wreathes near him, which read that. He and Leela had apparently agreed to take each other's surnames. It wasn't that important to the robot, and it showed.

There was a single wreathe off to the side that said:

Phillip J. Fry

Beloved Friend and Delivery Boy

It was the only one that mentioned his former career. The rest said 'Beloved Husband and Father'.

But Bender didn't know about that but from the weeping he assumed Fry was. Leela was off sitting in another pew, sobbing, her children beside her.

Then the service began, headed by some holy man or another. He spouted off things about what a great man Fry was, and the crying of the crowd only grew louder. But, Bender just couldn't seem to cry.

It wasn't that he wasn't capable of it, it was just that… the person he would have wept for had died while he wasn't looking.

The Fry he had known had died a long time ago.

He hadn't even had a chance to mourn… and now it was too late.

The apartment was empty.

Empty as it had been for the past decades. Turning away from the window, Bender dragged himself back onto the couch, and turned off the TV. Blankly, he slouched back down onto it, cushions yielding easily.

Automatically, his metal hands grabbed at his chest compartment. Reaching inside, he didn't pull anything out. Instead, Bender held his fingers over a switch in the back of it. The writing on it was simple: On/Off.

Once, a long time ago, Fry had said that robots didn't go to heaven.

He supposed that robots didn't have happy endings, either.

Click.