#it’s a WIP and it prolly won’t be finished cuz I kinda hate it

[electrical-communication]

Truthfully (wip)

Truthfully, walking was never as convenient as teleporting; when you’ve spent years as a rogue robot in hiding, however, you got used to not having the privilege of accessible teleport spots. Truthfully, Blues quite liked these little nature walks. Rock and Roll did too, but they weren’t as fond of thoughtful silence as their older brother was. The duo walked ahead of Blues, chatting away with each other about something or other. Truthfully, Blues was too distracted by the view of the vibrant sunset and distant calls of birds to eavesdrop on his siblings’ conversation, although he appreciated the background noise of the two talking all the same. And (perhaps a little vainly, he thought to himself) he was just a tad bit mesmerized by the way the sun rays glistened on his new plating. It was odd, really, to think he had spent so long avoiding this place yet now he found himself with an absentminded, contented smile on his face while on his way back to Light Labs. Truthfully, Blues could hardly remember the last time he smiled before he came home.

Blues was snapped out of his daydreaming by a rather strange sound. It was like… distressed squeaking. It was then that he noticed his siblings had stopped in their tracks, hunched over like they were examining something on the ground.

“Hey- oh,” Rock turned to catch Blues’s attention, but was shocked to see the older robot was already behind him, peering at what had the other two so interested.

It was a cat. Well, a kitten to be more precise. Truthfully, Blues was not expecting that, though luckily his surprise didn’t show on his face.

“What is a kitten doing all the way out here?” Roll asked. True, the little scamp was less like the young of a highly successful species of predators and more like an orange clump of fur hardly larger than a finger nor wider than one either. It was tucked away in some bushes, as if that would work to conceal its location when it was practically mewling its little head off earlier. Truthfully, it probably would have been mistaken for a really orange dandelion or something had it not been the noise.

“We should leave it alone. The mother is probably around here,” Blues suggested, already beginning to step back. He had enough encounters with wild animals as a runaway to know better than to get involved with situations like this. Of course, Rock didn’t have that kind of experience, so Blues expected it when the younger shot him a sad look, even if it didn’t make it sting any less.

“Aw, but it’s prolly so sad by itself. Can’t we play with it a little or something?” Rock probably would not have appreciated being told he was pouting, but he was totally pouting. Blues eyebrows lowered, and for the umpteenth time today he was thankful for the visor obscuring his eyes. What Rock was doing was dangerous, but Blues supposed he couldn’t blame him. Most of Rock’s interactions with animals were the companions built for him; and even if Tango could imitate the fickle nature of a real cat, he was nowhere near close to having the— for lack of a more flattering term— primitive mind of the real thing. Dr. Light and Dr. Cossack had done plenty of anthropomorphizing Rush, Tango, and Beat’s behavior— which is fine, because they are robots— but applying that expectation to organic animals was a dangerous thing. But Blues didn’t have the time to explain all of that to Rock.

“We might scare it,” Blues offered instead. Truthfully, Blues felt a bit pleased with himself when he saw Rock’s expression change from one of pouting to understanding. Blues turned to Roll, waiting to see her face change too, but instead he saw her thoughtful gaze examining the bush.

“I don’t see any other kittens here… I don’t think mama cats leave their babies far from each other,” Roll stated, but when that didn’t cause much of a reaction she added, “Plus this kitten is really friendly.” Roll gestured down to her feet as she said that, and it was then that the boys noticed the kitten had nuzzled up against her.

Blues waited for her to elaborate more, but it seemed Rock had already guessed what she was alluding to. “You’re saying you think they were abandoned?” Rock gasped. Blues mulled it over. It did make some sense. Truthfully, Blues had seen more than a few stray cats in the cities, and though he didn’t know too much about them, he knew enough to know they were quite skittish creatures who didn’t tend to approach humans (or in their case, human-like beings) without being accustomed to their presence first.

“I think she’s saying she thinks they were abandoned by a human,” Blues said, and at Roll’s confirmatory nod he heard Rock let out a sad little “oh”. “It probably wasn’t that long ago either. With as loud as he is, he would’ve been-“ Blues cut himself off, remembering the rather sensitive hearts (figuratively) of his siblings. “He wouldn’t still be here,” he quietly finished. A part of him felt guilty, as if he were to blame for the way nature worked and he wasn’t simply relaying that knowledge to his more naive siblings.

“Do you think maybe we just missed whoever dropped them off here?” Roll asked, having now squatted down to pet behind the kitten’s ears. Truthfully, they had crossed paths with a few humans on their walk— fortunately, none of them could match the robots’ child-like base appearances with their much more (in)famous armored forms, and Roll wasn’t very recognizable to the public outside of roboticist nerds— and all of three of them would have been none the wiser to any human’s foul feline-related motives. “If we search, we might be able to find them before they get away,” Roll half-heartedly suggested.

“They’ll just throw it back out again,” truthfully, Blues was a bit startled by the harshness of his own tone. It seemed to spur Rock on though.

“We can’t just leave them here without help!” he said, looking between the both of them for agreement. When Rock met Roll’s eyes, though, he stopped and the two both smirked as they reached some sort of mutual understanding.

“No, no. No way, Rock!” Roll gesticulated x’s with her hands, but the venomless tone and mischievous glint in her eye gave away her excitement for whatever idea the boy had.

“We should adopt the kitten,” Rock blurted out anyway, finally clueing Blues in on their disagreement. “You know you want to, Roll!”

“I know! But… You know it’s just..” Roll kept trailing off and interrupting herself, seemingly struggling to find the right words. “It’s just not the responsible thing to do,” she finally settled on saying. “Right, Blues?”

Truthfully, Blues felt a little warmed that Roll turned to him as the “responsible” one. Sometimes, Blues felt like his life was a series of terrible, impulsive decisions that he lived on with pride—fine for him, but awful for a role model. Still, if his sister thought he was someone to look up to, then that must mean maybe he was doing something right. He couldn’t let her down!

Blues looked back to the kitten, and already he felt his resolve weaken. Logically, he knew that picking this kitten up off the ground and bringing it to home was irresponsible and impulsive, but he also logically knew that this kitten would die in an hour or so without their intervention. Truthfully, looking at the raggedy orange thing— worn down already from its abandonment but with nobody to turn to care for it as it needs to be— he found that he was overcome with the urge to take care of it. Hell, if Dr. Light didn’t let them keep it at home, then Blues knew he would care for the kitten in secret at that point.

“We can take them to Dr. Light and ask him,” Blues compromised, already scooping the kitten into his hands before the other two could react. He began walking off toward Light Labs again, but halted when he realized he didn’t hear the thudding of his siblings behind him. He turned his head to see the two were stunned were they stood at his switch-up. “Well? Aren’t you two coming or do I have to ask him myself?” Blues playfully asked, and that seemed to snap the duo out of their stupor.

“I want to be the one to ask! I got to see his face when he sees them!” “Nuh-uh! I should ask him first!” The two raced forward, seemingly unaware that Blues was still the one holding the kitten. He shook his head with a fond smirk, and continued after them at a much slower, steadier pace than they traveled. Truthfully, Blues quite liked this whole “being an older sibling” thing.

—————————

Dr. Light knew better than to fret, he really did, but he couldn’t help feeling just a twinge concerned that his children weren’t home yet. Of course he knew that whatever the world threw at them, the combined force of his triplets would be more than capable of handling it. Still, they were supposed to be here by now… His finger twitched by the communicator—

“C’mon, Light! Ain’t you supposed to be gettin’ work done instead of bein’ a worrywart?” Auto’s crass voice interrupted his thoughts. The good doctor let out a sigh.

“You’re right,” Dr. Light relented, turning back to the project on his table. Besides, he knew if he sent Rock or Roll a message, the kids would teleport back to the lab immediately and stay by his side— which kinda ruined the whole point of them spending time out to explore themselves. Normally Auto was quite nosy too, but ever since Roll had— rather firmly— given him orders to keep Light on track when she wasn’t around, he did his best to follow them. It just wasn’t in his little mechanical heart to disappoint her (nor was it in his heart to tank the scolding afterward).

#yeah it’s a fucking fanfic jumpscare. about the kitten I drew that one time #it’s a WIP and it prolly won’t be finished cuz I kinda hate it #I wrote it cuz I was depressed and thought it’d make me feel better but eventually I got stuck #maybe I’ll add more to it one day #I have no idea how to write these characters </3 #my fanfic :)