BBS One-Shots

Malfunctions

Brian locked his jaw into place, keeping his mouth shut tightly as he worked on his arm. The wiring had been messed up, badly, and it had started to malfunction. Fixing the wiring like this, on a park bench in the middle of the night, with no actual tools, only a screwdriver, and an arm that was sparking, was a bad idea, but he had no choice. There was no mechanic, no engineer, nobody, that would ever take the time to learn specifically how his arm worked in order to fix it.

Sometimes Evan would help if it was a small fix, or maybe he'd ask Craig, who had some nimble enough fingers to assist him if he listen carefully, but he'd never found someone who was willing to put in the time, which meant he was always trying to fix it with his unsteady, left hand. He could never do it right, not all the way. He'd just make a minor fix until something else popped up. Sometimes he wished he knew someone, but he'd lost hope a while ago.

Brian cursed as electricity crackled off of his arm for a moment, hitting his flesh arm. He dug the screwdriver down, moving around wires to try and see the problem, but he couldn't find it. He pulled out the one tool he had and sighed. He would have called Evan or Craig, maybe even a cab, but he'd electrocuted his phone earlier, so it didn't even work anymore. Brain was about to give up and just walk the very long way home, so he didn't freak anyone out on the subway or something, when he heard someone walking towards him.

Brian considered the fact that it was probably a murderer when the person slowed as they came closer, but he decided that maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. It wasn't like he had much going for him.

"So, important question," the person, now obvious to Brian as a guy, stated as he stopped in front of him, "where can I meet the guy that made your arm, because damn."

Brian blinked. "Uh, I did, actually. Stupid thing keeps malfunctioning, though. I should just get it removed and get a real one."

"No, no, don't do that!" the guy exclaimed.

Brian raised an eyebrow. "Why? Got some robot fetish or something?"

The guy turned a bright red, viscously denying what Brian suggested. "No! No, I just-!"

Brian laughed. "It's okay, I was just joking about the fetish thing."

The man relaxed. "I was just wondering because I saw sparks, and I got curious. Then I saw your arm, and being an engineer, I couldn't help myself."

"Wait, an engineer?"

The guy nodded.

"You know, I'm very willing to pay you everything I have to hire you to fix my arm, man. I'd willing to give up a lot to get someone to even attempt to fix this."

The guy seemed to pause, then a small smile appeared on his face. Clearly, he had gotten an idea. "How about I help you fix up your arm, you can teach me how it works, and then you can pay me back with a date? If you need help again, you can just call me and we can talk about some other payment or something."

Brian eagerly agreed. If the payment was a date with a very cute engineer, he wasn't going to say no to it.