Astro felt lost. He had literally lost everything in a matter of hours. His father, his home, even his humanity. He had no idea where to go or what to do, and if all the robots acted like those junkies on the trash pile, then his life had just became extremely dangerous. Though, he felt a little safer being around another person. Cora had an odd confidence that made him feel like everything was going to be alright. Though, he wasn't sure how she would react to the fact that he was a robot, he hadn't had a very good experience with humans so far. He was afraid he would be rejected again.
"Gah!" Cora gasped as her hands slipped on loose ruble and she tumbled backward. She landed hard on Astro, slamming into his chest as he instinctively caught her. He let off a soft grunt before gently reaching under her arms and effortlessly lifted her to her feet.
"You okay?" He asked, checking her from head to toe for injuries with his eyes. Not finding any new ones, beyond the couple of scrapes and bruises she had when they met, he looked up at her to find her staring at him. Suddenly feeling flustered for no reason, he squirmed under her gaze. "What?"
"How'd you do that?" She asked, now looking him up and down, as if searching for something that wasn't there. Now he was just confused. What was she talking about? What did he do that wasn't normal?
"What?" He repeated, a confused expression taking over his face. Cora stared for a moment longer, then blink and shook her head softly
"Never mind, it was nothing, you're just a lot stronger than you look." She turned and started to climb over the juck again, reaching the top of the pile a moment later and sliding down the other side, out of view. Astro looked down at his hand, moving his fingers one by one. Guess I'm stronger than I thought, I barely even noticed that she weighed anything. He glanced back up at the top of the hill, sighing as he scurried up it and down the other side to follow Cora. I'm gonna have to be more careful with that.
"Hey Cora, where are we going anyway?" The darkness had set in quickly after they had started walking, and he was starting to get nervous, especially with that weird buzzing that he swore was following them. He kept glancing over his shoulder, but was unable to see anything in the dim moonlight. He wanted more than anything to turn on his eye beams and search the area, but he refused to lose this kind girl that quickly. So instead, he settled for following close behind her and making sure that she didn't fall and break her neck in the dark.
"Well, I'm heading home to Hamegg's Robot Circus. You are welcome to leave at any point." She grunted at the end of the sentence, stumbling over a particularly large piece of trash. He reached out to catch her again, but was startled when she let out a scream, yanking his hands back in fear that he was the sudden cause of her distress. She fell over on her side, clutching her shin and gritting her teeth. Astro gasped and threw himself down next to her, hand hovering over her anxiously, but too afraid to touch her.
"What happened? What's wrong?" He asked frantically, eyes skimming over her in fear.
"I think I just cut my leg on scrap metal." She ground out through her teeth. She pried her eyes open to examine her leg, though was unable to see anything, forced to go off of what she could feel rather than what she could see. "That feels like a lot of blood."
"Okay, it's gonna be fine." Astro said, though whether he was ensuring Cora or himself, he wasn't sure. "Let me see it." He said, wrapping his fingers around her's and gently pulling them away. He sighed in relief once he saw the cut. It was actually really shallow, from what he could tell, but it was long, maybe the length of his hand, and wasn't actually bleeding all that much.
"Okay, it's not actually that deep and is barely bleeding." He stated, gently pulling the fabric of her pant leg away so he could see it better. She sighed below him.
"I'm guessing that it just hurts this much because of the location." She hissed when his fingers got a little too close and he quickly pulled away, watching as she sat up. She examined her leg, face shrouded in darkness so he couldn't see her expression. A moment later she ripped a shred of fabric from her ragged skirt, tying it around the cut in a makeshift bandage. With a huff, she got to her feet, avoiding putting pressure on her injured leg, and she started to limp away from him in the direction they had been going, skirting her way around the metal that had cut her in the first place. "Come on Astro, we need to keep going."
"What?" He jumped to his feet, racing up behind her then flipping around and walking backward in front of her. "I think it is way too dark at this point, and we are just going to keep getting hurt if we keep going like this. We should just find a place to rest for the night and then keep going when the sun comes out." He said, worried thoughts consuming his mind, everything from the temperature dropping and Cora starting to shiver to disinfecting her leg before it got an infection or tetanus.
For a minute it looked like the girl was going to argue. She opened her mouth, face set in defiance, but then she stepped wrong and tumbled forward. Astro lunged forward and grabbed her before she fell, picking her up again and noticing that her shivering had gotten worse. She seemed to notice this too, because she sighed again and nodded her head.
"Fine, fine, we'll stop for tonight and find a place to sleep." She then proceeded to look around blindly in the darkness. "Um, how are we going to find somewhere to sleep without being able to see?" AStro also looked around, hoping more than anything that they would be lucky and find some sort of alcove to hide in for the night. That weird humming sound was back, and it was starting to make him nervous, well, more nervous. Especially since Cora didn't seem to hear it. He glanced around again, somewhat expecting something to jump out and try to tear them apart. Luckily, nothing attacked, but he did notice the slight darkening of the shadows at the edge of one of the trash piles a distance away from them. He wasn't sure, but from the angle they were at, it almost looked like the mouth of an overhang.
"Hey Cora, do you see that?" He asked, pointing at the shadow he had spotted.
"Um, no, what are you even trying to show me?" He turned back to see Cora squinting, as if it would help her see better in the blackness.
"Well, it almost looks like an overhang." He stated, sounding more sure of himself than he actually felt. Cora seemed to perk up at this, making a greater effort to see what he was talking about, but still clearly struggling. Well, add better eyesight to the list of differences between me and humans.
"Well, I can't see it, but it is worth the time to go check it out." Cora waved her hand in a wide sweeping motion I front of her, nodding slightly and looking at him with that searching look again, like he was some sort of puzzle that she needed to figure out. "Lead the way, Wonder Boy." The nickname made something buzz in his chest, almost like a heartbeat. This made his chest constrict, leaving him with a sudden longing for something as simple as a heart beating in his chest. He had to quickly shut the thought down, shoving it to the back of his mind, because he could not break down here, not now. He couldn't let those dark thoughts and insecurities spread through his mind. Shaking the sudden cold, hollow feeling way, he nodded and started making his way down the hill they were standing on and heading towards the supposed overhang.
That is, until he heard Cora gasp behind him. He turned around just in time for Cora to smash into him again, this time with enough force to send them both tumbling down the junk pile. They landed painfully at the bottom, a writhing pile of flailing limbs. It took them a minute to untangle and get to their feet, and they were both extremely flustered whey they finally did. After a while of awkward silence, COra cleared her throat.
"Do we agree to pretend that never happened?"
"Agreed." They both nodded, still not looking each other in the eye. It took awhile, but they finally made it to their destination. They were both ecstatic to see that it actually was an alcove, though it was smaller than they expected. It was a rounded indent in the pile of old parts and unwanted garbage, just big enough for both of them to climb into and opening up a little bit towards the inside, like some sort of metallic cave. Astro went in first, doing a quick check to make sure that it wouldn't collapse and kill them in their sleep. When it proved safe, Cora practically dove in, plopping down and collapsing with a big sigh. She stretched for a moment before curling up, obviously exhausted. Astro sat next to her, knees to his chest and watching her out of the corner of his eye as he gazed at the dim moonlight just outside of the makeshift shelter. The humming had faded again, and he was almost as nervous about that as he was about the sound getting louder. They stayed in silence for such a long time that Astro thought Cora had fallen asleep, when a soft voice pierced the quiet atmosphere.
"I'm glad I met you Astro, I have a feeling that we are going to go on quiet the adventure together." Astro was slightly startled, but he smiled into the darkness as a strange fluttering sensation filled his chest.
"Yeah me too, Cora, me too." A soft sigh was his only answer, and they were quiet again. Though he was glad it was so quiet, because if it wasn't, he probably would have missed the nearly silent "good night" that Cora whispered, slipping into the land of dreams. He smiled again, glancing over to her still form. He noticed that she was still shivering, and made a decision that he would later blame on delirium. He unzipped his jacket, taking it off, and carefully draped it over the girl as best as he could. "Good night, Cora." He whispered, before settling down and falling asleep himself.