Murder Drones Stories/Oneshots

5 Stages of Grief- Part 1: Denial

This is part one of a five part short story following N, and it's pretty angsty. This story deals with themes of abuse, self harm, suicidal thoughts, etc.; so it's understandable if you want to skip this one.
This story is a take on why N is such a people pleaser and puts up with how his teammates treat him, and he's roughly a young teenager in the memory bits. (9-10th grade age in memories and 18 outside of the memories on Copper-9 taking place after episode 2.)
These memories would take place before any of the episodes, and N has a family but is in school/training to become a worker away from his family. Disregard the fact it doesn't make sense for him to have a family, considering families of workers were only a thing after humans were wiped out on Copper-9. 

Proofread ✔

~Enjoy~

It'd been a long day for N, and this was the opposite of what he needed. He'd just opened the door to his living quarters to find his mother in an argument with her... boyfriend? N wasn't sure what he was in terms to his mother, as he tried not to pay attention to the guy. N tried to slip past the arguing adults to his room, just wanting to rest after a long day of training and testing. 

"Where are you going?" His mother suddenly turned to him and yelled.
N flinched, stopping to turn around. "I was just going to my room." He muttered fearfully.
His mother scoffed, "And you think you're so high and mighty as to not say hello to your own family? Don't you ever think about how you affect other people? Or is all you ever think about yourself?" 

N stared at his mother wide-eyed. Each and every word burrowed into his mind like maggots in an apple. A familiar ache presided in his heart as words sped through his mind: "All I ever think of is if I'm doing what would make others happiest! Why can't I please you? Why am I not enough when I'm trying so hard? How am I the one to hurt you when you hurt me all the time? I can't even say 'Hi' to you because you're too busy fighting with another guy!" But none of the words came out. Not a single word to defend himself with. 

"Sorry," He breathed out, looking at the grime coated carpet.
"No, you're not; or you wouldn't keep doing this." His mother hissed. "Whatever, just go to your room like you wanted to."
"But I can stay in here if-" N was cut off by his mother.
"No. Just go. Not like you care anyway."

N trudged to his room and threw his backpack over his shoulder onto the floor with a thud. He gripped his hair and took a deep breath, falling onto his bed and groaning into the pillow. N flipped over, opening his chat window on his visor; he needed some comfort right now. 

"Hey, V." He typed the message to his friend. 
"Hiya! ^^" A response pinged back. He found himself smiling already.
"How was your day?" He asked, trying not to think about his.
"Ugh. It SUCKED. The academy dudes were horrible to my class! I don't even get why we have to do these classes. Like, 26 of us had our names scrapped to a single letter and got tossed in this hot garbage pile called a school... and for WHAT." V ranted.
N smiled, a small puff of air the only evidence of his fondness for the other drone. "I dunno. Sorry you had a cruddy day tho :(" 
"It's alright, tomorrow will be better. I'm gonna beat J in the fight sim >:)" V responded.
N rolled his eyes affectionately, "I know you will."
"So how'd your day go?" The words startled him. He didn't think he'd have to talk about himself, and he didn't want to worry V.
"I've been better." He typed carefully. He was avoiding the situation.
"What'd she do now?" V already knew what he was going through, so there was no point in trying to hide anything from her.
"Noting too bad." N could see her typing soon after he sent his reply and quickly sent another message, "It was just a short bit of yelling, nothing heated. Dw."
The dots showing V typing faded momentarily as though V were thinking. "You need to report this."

The short reply made N feel as though his stomach were filled with centipedes trying to eat their way out. A cold and disturbing feeling made him curl his blanket around him, trying to find hope in the warmth. It didn't work. He still felt hopeless. He'd been told that sometimes what broke a person was what made them so complex and interesting, like a stained glass mosaic; however, he couldn't find anything beautiful or meaningful in the emptiness and fear he felt. He was so very tired of all this.

Then, a surge of panic. He was fine. Everything was fine. Nothing was bad enough to even consider telling someone about. Sure, what happened here hurt him nearly every day to the point he'd been going in a downward spiral for years; but he couldn't reach out for help. Reaching out would just mean risking everything and then losing it because he was fine. Nothing was wrong. This was normal; and he was just a sensitive, soft, useless fucking liability. Tears stung the corners of his eyes as he pushed down the sharp feeling in his throat. Then it went blank. Dull pinpricks moved in waves throughout his body, matching the empty feeling enveloping his mind-space. 

"I can't." N responded, simply.
"Why not????" V prodded.
N glanced to his hand, a yellow cord bracelet reminding him of what he could lose. "Because I'm not making it out of here. I have too much to lose if nobody believes me."
"And you're just gonna give up?" V bombarded him with question after question, each in separate text bubbles. "Just like that?" Another. "Why?" More: "But what about if you get caught and I lose you anyways?"
N dug his fingers into his arms, trailing scratches and digging deep into his soft metal casing. The pain of it kept him grounded; kept him from losing it and bawling his eyes out. N took a deep and unsteady breath, and typed an answer to all V's questions: "Yes, because I can't lose you. And if I get caught talking to you now and get pulled out of the academy, then I promise you I'll do something. I always thought being alone would be best for me, because it always ends in hurt; but you, I don't think I could stand to lose you. And if I did, then I'd lose myself; I'd really be alone in this place, and I can't take that." 

"So you admit that you're being abused?" The words burned into N's CPU. His face scrunched up; a million words flying through his head, yet nothing at all coming out or making sense.
"No, because I'm not." The words almost seemed to have typed themselves.

"You're in denial, N"

Part 2 coming soon, then the title will make sense lol