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Fry really didn’t want to wake up but the cold metal hand patting his cheek was insistent in drawing him back towards consciousness. “Come on Fry, I know you ain’t dead yet so hurry up and open your eyes already. It can’t be that bad, can it?” There was an odd note to his voice, an emotion Fry couldn’t quite place, especially since he was fairly sure he’d never heard it in Bender’s voice before. Meaning it was probably a good idea to wake up and see what he was upset about.
With a groan, Fry forced himself to open his eyes. He was leaning back against an uneven wall. Bender hovered over him, one hand out stretched to tap Fry’s check, the other held a lantern, its light dim and lens cracked, it was seemingly the only source of light in whatever space they were currently in. A large splotch of something wet and red was smeared across Bender’s front, it looked an awful lot like blood but that didn’t make sense because robots didn’t bleed.
“You’re awake,” Bender said as he withdrew his hand from Fry’s face. He sounded… relieved? “That means you’ll be fine, right?”
Fry wanted to push himself up a bit further but… the fact that everything seemed to hurt told him not to. “What happened?” They’d been going into a scary looking cave to deliver a package to the client who’d ordered it who was supposedly inside. Presumably they were still in that cave since they certainly weren’t outside. So… what had happened? A cave-in perhaps? That would explain why it was so dark and perhaps why Fry had been unconscious.
“It was a trap. Those bastards tried to kill us. They failed though, look see, even the lantern survived.” Bender gestured with it, making it sway back and forth a bit harder than Fry was comfortable with given how it was their only source of light.
“Why’d they try to kill us?”
“How should I know? It doesn’t matter though because they blew the fucking cave up on top of us and now we’re trapped behind a damn wall of rocks and dirt. I’d tell you to dig us but uh…” he looked Fry up and down a grimace, “yeah. That means I have to though. Ugh, I hate manual labor.”
“What?” Fry’s brain seemed to be running slow and the pain made it rather hard to think. Why had Bender been looking at him like that? And why did everything hurt so much?
Bender said something in response but Fry missed it as he looked down at himself at last. He clothing was soaked in something warm and red… blood, he was covered in blood. It was impossible to tell where it was all coming from in the in low light of the damaged lantern but surely it couldn’t all be his, could it? But then where else would it have come from? And further down, his leg lay twisted an odd angle that no human leg was supposed to bend and it might’ve just been his imagination playing cruel tricks on him but it looked like part of his bone was sticking out as well, covered in more blood.
“Fry!” Bender snapped in a tone that suggested he’d been trying to get Fry’s attention for a little bit now. The ‘wet red stuff’ on his front made more sense now; he’d moved Fry to lean him up against the wall. “You hit your hit too or something?”
“Uh… I don’t know.” He honestly had no way of knowing anymore. “But what… how’d this… happen?” He gestured vaguely at himself.
“The explosion and shrapnel and stuff turned your soft meaty body into swiss cheese. It didn’t do much to me for obvious reasons.” He hit a fist against his chest, making a hollow clang. “And a big boulder landing on you fucked up your leg. You were lucky though because it probably would’ve killed you if it had hit you somewhere else. But you’ve survived some pretty bad stuff in the past. Even if that was with immediate medical assistance, which we don’t have down here, you’ll still survive this, right?” That odd note was back in Bender’s voice as he finished speaking
“Uh… I don’t know.” He certainly didn’t feel like he was going to be all right after this. Though he hadn’t felt that way during all the other times he’d taken serious bodily harm either. But unlike those times there weren’t any doctors nearby with their nigh-on magical healing technologies. They were trapped in a cave on a planet in the middle of nowhere without even basic medical supplies which didn’t bode well for him. But… “I hope so.” Hoping was all he could really do.
A few seconds of heavy silence went by in which Bender was still as a statue before he jerked out of it. “Well, I’m going to get to moving boulders and stuff. Those punks are so going to pay for this as soon as I’m out and uh… I guess after I take you to a doctor too. Call me if you need anything, okay?” He placed the lantern down on the ground next to Fry before turning to leave, presumably heading in the direction of the cave in.
Fry watched him disappear into the darkness, wanting to call him back but… as much as he didn’t want to be alone, his only chance of surviving this was Bender getting him out and to a doctor. So… “I love you,” he called after him instead just in case this was his last chance to say that.
Bender’s footsteps paused. “Is now really the time for being all sappy and stuff?”
“I don’t see why it’s a bad time for it.”
“Fine, I love you too so don’t you dare fucking die or I’ll never forgive you.”
Fry’s small laugh quickly petered out because it hurt too much. “I’ll try my best,” he forced out in a weak voice.
Without Bender there to keep him focused, Fry quickly started having trouble staying awake. Even with the pain every tiny movement and even breathing brought, sleep seemed to beckon him. If he fell asleep now though would he ever wake up? So he fought it. … It was a losing battle though.
It was awfully cold too. So much so, his hands and feet soon began to grow numb from it. Which was odd because hadn’t the planet been rather warm, even inside the cave? He’d complained about it to Leela before heading off with Bender while she stayed back to refuel the ship, using the ship’s backup fuel canisters; she’d told him to suck it up and deal with it. So why did it feel so cold now?
He didn’t want to die in the cold, especially alone. … More like he didn’t want to die at all, there was still so much to see and do. He still hadn’t mastered the holophonor. And there were still so many TV shows left to watch with Bender and video games to play on his phone while avoiding work. And so many other things too. He couldn’t die yet, not like this, he wasn’t ready. … But he’d never would be ready, huh? And he didn’t really have a choice in the matter; he was dying whether he liked it or not and… he didn’t want to do it alone.
“Bender,” he tried to call out but his voice failed him and it came out rather weak instead.
Despite that, the sound of Bender shifting rocks stopped. A few seconds later, he emerged back into the weak lamplight. “What?” The annoyance in his voice and stance were forced. “I’m trying to get us out of here which you should be grateful for since I don’t normally do that type of thing.”
“I… I’m dying,” Fry choked out. “I’m… not going to make it.”
“Nonsense, you’re still breathing so it’s fine. You said so yourself… sort of.”
Fry whimpered as he shook his head. “I’m cold and numb and… it hurts so much. But… I just want to sleep.” He didn’t even have enough energy to be as panicked as he should be. “I don’t got much time left.”
“Well… I’m trying to get us out as fast as I can, what more do you want from me?” Lacking any real energy, Bender’s attempt at callousness failed. He had to know that even if the way to the ship was clear, getting to anywhere with proper medical facilities would take a couple hours at least. Fry was growing increasingly certain he didn’t have that long, let alone however long it would take to dig out of the cave too so…
“I don’t want to die alone.” That had always been one of his biggest fears, that he’d die alone and no one would care. He didn’t have to worry about the latter at least but the former was still scary. “Please Bender I… I… just please… I don’t want to die alone.” That wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?
Still as a statue, Bender stared at him, his expression unreadable, for several seconds before he jerked back into motion. “If that’s the case then I guess I just got to use this sooner than I thought I would.” As he spoke, he opened his chest compartment and reached seemingly all the way to the back to pull something out. A small black metal box. He flipped that open to pull out a rectangular object with a switch on it and wires coming out either end of it. One of which ended in what looked an awful lot like the brain scan caps in science fiction movies.
“What’s that?” Fry asked as Bender leaned over to put it on him.
“Don’t worry about it. Just… trust me when I say everything’s going to be okay, all right?” Bender secured it in place under Fry’s chin, tight enough to be uncomfortable. Fry didn’t trust himself to be able to loosen it though so he let it be as Bender sat down to lean back against the wall next to him.
“I love you. You’re the greatest friend I’ve ever had or could’ve ever asked for and the best…”
“What did I just say?” Bender’s annoyance was real this time. “As much as I like it when you acknowledge how great am I, you’re talking like you think this is the end.”
“But… it is.” And Fry was struggling to even stay focused enough to say the things he wanted to say, how much longer before even that was too much for him?
“I told you, everything’s going to be okay so just trust me and shut up already, talking’s a waste of energy.”
Fry did trust him but… he didn’t seem to know what was going on. Was it denial or him not understanding how death worked? Couldn’t be the latter, not solely anyway. Maybe a little bit of both then? Fry didn’t have the energy to explain though.
Bender was fiddling with the wire coming out of the other side of the rectangle thing. It split off into two plugs. One of which Bender opened his chest compartment to plug it into himself or into something else inside him. The other he stared at for several seconds, seemingly unsure what to do with it before shrugging and pulling it into his chest compartment too. He went much deeper with that one, his arm stretching up inside himself.
“What is it?” Fry tried again, having to force the words out. Perhaps if his mind didn’t feel so cloudy he’d be able to come up with even guess but… he had nothing.
Bender didn’t even glance his way as he instead pressed the switch on the box connecting them. A strange hum filled Fry’s head, loud but not unpleasant, especially since it seemed to lessen the pain a little, making it even harder to focus and think.
Bender said something that Fry couldn’t quite understand for some reason as he leaned back against the wall and took Fry’s hand into his own, intertwining their fingers. His tone was reassuring though, which was rather unlike him but… it was nice.
Fry squeezed his hand as hard as his failing strength would let him. He wasn’t dying alone or unloved and… that was enough right now.
~~~
Fry came to slowly. Something was off though. He opened his eyes to the sight of a cave wall several feet away. It didn’t look normal though, it was like he was looking at it through a night vision camera. Why was he even in a cave? … Right yeah, the delivery mission and then waking up in pain… he’d been dying and now wasn’t? He certainly didn’t hurt anymore which was a huge plus all on it own.
“See? I told you everything would be okay,” Bender said, sounding rather pleased with himself. But when Fry turned his head to the left to look at him to ask what exactly had happened, he wasn’t there. Hmmm… weird.
Fry turned his head to look to the right next and was met with the rather peculiar sight of himself. But everything about that sight was wrong. He was unnaturally stiff and covered in blood, the latter of which made sense based off his recollection prior to waking except for the fact that it looked mostly congealed now. … Dead was the only word that could describe it, he was looking at his own corpse.
He yelped as he pulled away because what the actual fuck? But the corpse – his corpse – was holding his hand and wouldn’t let go and… Suddenly he was holding still and looking away, though not by his own volition.
“This is going to be a lot more troublesome than I initially thought,” Bender said, the location of his voice indiscernible
“Bender? What’s going on?” Fry didn’t like whatever it was. But then again he was still here while his body was very dead. Was he a ghost?
“I guess I didn’t exactly tell you what I was doing. But I’m sure even you can figure it out fairly quickly.” Bender’s hand, that was also his own somehow, rose in front of his face to give a small finger wave. Things just kept getting stranger but one thing was pretty clear, he seemed to be in Bender’s body somehow, looking down at himself and seeing Bender’s open chest compartment with the two wires coming out confirmed it.
“I’m a ghost possessing you?”
“Close but not exactly. I downloaded your mind onto my hard drive” As he spoke, Bender carefully pried his hand out of corpse Fry’s stiff grip. It was coated in a thick layer of congealed blood.
Fry shuddered in disgust, looking away again as he tried to shake it off. It didn’t work though; despite being made of metal he could still feel it clinging to him or… more like to Bender.
“Stop that!” Bender reinserted control and tried to wipe it on Fry’s jacket before Fry pulled it back.
“Can we please not touch my corpse? It’s weird and… I don’t like it.” Touching one’s own corpse was not a thing anyone should ever even be able to do, let alone actually do if given the chance.
“It’s not really you anymore so why does it matter? But fine, whatever, if you insist. Let me take this off though.” Bender at least had the kindness to let Fry continue to look away as he reached over to take off the wired cap off Fry’s corpse. He then unplugged himself from the device, a rather odd feeling sensation, before putting the whole thing back in its box and then that back in his chest compartment.
“Why didn’t you tell me that that thing was going to download my mind or whatever?” Fry asked as he wiped off what could of the blood on Bender’s hand onto the rocks making up the floor – which wasn’t as effective as he would’ve liked but what else could he do? “That would’ve been a huge comfort, you know.” Knowing he wasn’t going into oblivion would’ve made the whole dying thing a lot less scary and upsetting. And it’s not like Bender didn’t have enough time to explain, he’d had plenty.
“In case you refused.”
“Why would I ever refuse?”
Bender shrugged as he stood up. “Humans and other living things are peculiar about their bodies for some reason. I’ve heard of instances where your kind have refused stuff like that in the past so I wasn’t taking any chances.”
“Well, those people were dumb.” Fry would’ve never even considered refusing such a thing even if sharing a body with his boyfriend was really weird and seeing his own corpse was all kinds of horrible that he’d probably have nightmares about later. “Is this like a permanent situation though? Are we going to be in the same body forever?”
“Fuck no. As much as I love you, I need me time sometimes too so I’m transferring you to your own body as soon as possible when we get home.”
Good, Fry wasn’t a huge fan of sharing a body either. He wanted his own body, preferably the one he’d had before. That wasn’t an option though so he’d take what he could get. … But then again, he’d presumably be uploaded into a robot, basically making him a robot, right? That would be pretty awesome. Heck actually, he was technically a robot now, wasn’t he?
“Can I bend something? … If that’s all right with you?” It was Bender’s body and he really didn’t want to impose, especially since taking on Fry like this was probably not his idea of a good time but he’d always admired Bender’s strength and now that was kinda his so… he really badly wanted to bend something just because he could now.
Bender sighed and fondly shook his head – conversing with him when they were in the same body was really weird. “Sure, if there’s something around here to bend, you can bend it.”
Fry looked around, carefully avoiding glancing at his corpse. Unfortunately, they were in a natural cave and thus the only thing around was rock wall and the boulders and stuff, making up the cave-in, nothing all that bendable. Well, there was the lamp, its battery had run out while they’d been ‘sleeping’. Still careful not to look directly at his corpse, Fry located it and snatched it up off the ground.
Its already cracked lens shattered as he bent it with ease. It was only a small lantern but it was still made of pretty sturdy metal and he could bend it all out of shape in any and every way he pleased. It might as well have been putty in his hands.
Bender kindly let him play with it for a while before interjecting. “As much fun as this is, we really need to get out of here.”
“Right uh… yeah.” Fry opened Bender’s chest compartment and quickly placed the mangled, unrecognizable remains of the lantern inside. That was another something he’d always wished he could do. It was like having a giant pocket, one he didn’t have to worry about stuff falling out of or being pick-pocketed. “How do we get out?”
“I don’t know, maybe the same way we came in.” Bender turned to face the rockslide. In hindsight, that had been a rather stupid question. “So get to digging meatbag. … I guess I can’t really call you ‘meatbag’ anymore, huh?”
“Nah, you can still call me that if you want to.” It would be weird if Bender didn’t occasionally call him that after all the years he’d been doing it.
“All right then meatbag, get to work.” Bender pointed to the cave in but made no move to start digging them out himself. “But then again, you doing it would technically be the same as me doing it and you’re already dead so there’s no need to rush anymore. So, actually let’s just wait for Leela to come save us instead.”
Under normal circumstances, Fry would’ve been more than willing to go with that plan. Even now it was tempting but his corpse was only a few feet away and he’d rather not think about that or the fact that it would probably start rotting soon and that was not something he wanted to see any part of. With all that hovering over him like an oppressive cloud, he wanted out of here as soon as physically possible. So, he stepped forward to start of the rock pile. “I think I’d prefer to dig out.”
“Really?” Bender groaned. “Fine, whatever, I’m not helping though.”
~
Bender’s initial attempt at digging out had cleared only about enough to be noticeable. Despite how long it had felt to Fry at the time, he clearly hadn’t been long at it before Fry had called him back. But Fry was making good progress. Up until he started to feel dizzy anyway, messing with his coordination and balance. It was almost like he was starting to get tipsy or something.
“That’s enough,” Bender said, breaking his silence as he took back control of his body. Fry’s instinct was to fight that because he wanted out of here but it was Bender’s body, he was just a temporary passenger.
Bender stepped back from the cave in but thankfully didn’t turn around. He opened his chest compartment and somehow knew just where to reach to pull out a beer. He downed the whole thing in one go and instantly Fry felt better. Right yeah, because robots ran on alcohol. After tossing the empty bottle aside, he pulled out another and down that one too, finishing with a flame belch.
“And that’s the last one,” he said as he tossed the bottle off somewhere too. “So no more digging or we’re going to run out of fuel faster.”
“I thought you always carried a lot of extra bottles though, especially when we go out on missions.” They’d all been in enough crazy situations by now to bring extra everything they needed when going out. Especially when it was to a particularly distant planet as this one had been.
“Yeah, I do, but do you have any idea how much power it takes to upload a human mind into anything, especially when it needs to be done quickly? And it’s not like there’s an outlet anywhere nearby so all that power had to come straight from me. So you better be grateful, especially since I have to put up with you in my body for who even knows how long.”
“Oh uh… I guess that would probably take a lot of power, huh? Thanks, I… really appreciate this, like a lot.” More than he knew how to put into words; if Bender hadn’t done this, he’d be… who even knows what or where, probably oblivion would be his guess. But instead he got to continue to exist after death. This didn’t count as being alive anymore though, did it? He was still dead, his corpse was mere feet away, just not gone. That was… creepy to think about so he wasn’t going to anymore. “You’re really awesome for doing this for me.”
Bender chuckled smugly. “Yep, I’m great and awesome.”
Fry wanted to hug him but… well actually he could sort of. So, he did, he was hugging himself too but it still counted, right? Especially since it was Bender’s body.
“This is really weird,” Bender said but didn’t put a stop to it. When Fry got his own body, he’d be sure one of the first things he did with it was give Bender a proper hug, for now though, this would have to do.
~
“What if Leela assumes we’re both dead and thus doesn’t even try to dig us out?” And thus they would be trapped in here until Bender ran out of fuel and then what would happen next? … They’d die, right? Meaning Fry would die again. He wasn’t ready to face death again, not so soon after the first time.
“Yeah, no, that’s not going to happen. She’ll know I survived so she’ll at least want to dig me out.”
That was a fair point actually but it only calmed Fry’s nerves for a short time because… “What if the assholes who attacked us went after her too and now she’s also dead or dying and…”
“This is Leela we’re talking about here. You really think she’d let those chumps get the best of her?” Another good point.
“But… but…” On top of not wanting to potentially die again Fry also really wanted out of here. He wasn’t normally plagued by claustrophobia or anything like it but the longer he spent in the presence of his slowly rotting corpse, the more he wanted away from it. Refusing to look in its general direction didn’t make him any less aware that it was there. “Look at how much progress we made? Surely we’re almost out. I bet if we cleared just a few more rocks we’d begin to see…”
The ground shook beneath them accompanied by a loud but muffled boom. Whatever it was also raised a cloud of dust from the cave-in as it shifted, most of it collapsing outward away from them. It didn’t clear it, not even close, but it did make as sizeable hole in it through which light could be seen. Not sunlight but a lantern, its light growing stronger as the person holding it stepped into the breach. It was Leela of course.
“See I told you,” Bender said smugly before starting for her. “It’s about damn time you showed up. We’ve been trapped for ages.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I kind of had to deal with an army of aliens trying to kill me and steal the ship. And then I had to steal some explosives because the ones we have the ship were too powerful and probably would’ve made the cave in worse and possibly crushed you guys. All that kind of took a…” Leela paused as Bender pulled them up onto the rock next to her. “Is that blood on your chest?”
“Yep, and hand.” Bender lifted the hand still coated in Fry’s dried blood. “I need a shower.”
“Where’s Fry? Is he okay?”
“That depends on your definition of ‘okay’.”
Leela stepped past them to jump off the rock. Which unfortunately was far enough into the cave to allow the circle of her lantern light to reach Fry’s corpse. She gasped and presumably ran over based off the sound of her footsteps but Fry didn’t see because no way was he looking in that direction anymore. Instead he focused on the cave wall on the other side.
“He’s dead.” Leela’s voice was full of grief and shock. Fry truly hadn’t died unloved, he had friends who cared about him too.
“Yep,” Bender said, “but don’t worry, he’s…”
“How can you be so indifferent to this?” Leela was almost yelling. “I thought you loved him. How can even you be so…”
It was Fry’s turn to interrupt now because the last thing Bender deserved was Leela’s ire. “It’s fine, I’m fine. Well… I guess that does depend what your definition of ‘fine’ is because I am still dead which is… pretty awful and disturbing and scary. But… other than that I’m fine.”
There was a heavy beat or two of silence before Leela found her voice again. “W-what?”
“This is what you get for not letting me finish Leela.” Bender crossed his arms and tapped his foot in annoyance but thankfully respected Fry’s desire to continue to stare the wall and not look in that direction. “Before he died, I uploaded his mind onto my hard drive. So he’s basically sharing a body with me now.”
“Oh uh… but how? I thought the technology to do that kind of thing was super expensive and not portable.”
“Well, I stole a prototype portable version.”
“Wait, that thing was only a prototype?” Fry had assumed it was tested and safe. “What if it hadn’t worked?”
“You wouldn’t be here right now, duh.”
“Well uh… I guess that’s good,” Leela said. “Why’d you put him into your body though? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to carry something else around for that purpose?”
“I did but I didn’t think I’d have to use it any time soon and filled that flash drive up with porn. So when he was dying I had to decide if I wanted to delete all that porn or delete a few extraneous things from my hard drive and deal with sharing a body for a little while. It’s a lot of porn, most of it good too, so it wasn’t really a hard decision.”
“What’d you delete to make room for me?”
“The last traces of the code meant to make me follow the Laws of Robotics and a few other things so unimportant I don’t even remember what they were.”
“What’s the Laws of Robotics?” Fry was pretty sure he’d never heard of such a thing before.
Bender shrugged. “How should I know? I just deleted everything having to do with them other than the name. There’s no way I ever followed them though so it doesn’t matter. Now let’s get out of here, I’m so done with this cave.” He turned and started for the exit.
“What are we going to do about Fry’s body though?” Leela called after them. “Is okay to just leave it?”
Fry halted, earning a small annoyed sound from Bender but this was important. He still didn’t look over his shoulder at Leela as he answered her though. “Burn it and spread my ashes on the moon.”
“Why?” Unsurprisingly Bender didn’t understand. That was fine though, he didn’t need to, to follow Fry’s wishes.
“Because the very few times I thought about what I wanted to have happen to my body after I died, that was what I decided I wanted. It’s in my will.”
“All right Fry. We’ll burn your body. Bender and uh… Fry let’s go get some stuff for burning from the ship.” As she spoke, Leela climbed back up onto the rock next to them and led the way out.
“What else is in your will?” Bender asked as he followed.
“All my stuff is supposed go to you, except my space heater and all my food, that goes to Leela.”
Bender chuckled. “Sounds good to me, we don’t need the heater anymore anyway, especially since I still have the one installed in me. I don’t know what I’ll do with any of your junk but it doesn’t matter.”
“Wait what? No! I’m still here so my stuff going to you doesn’t really count.”
“Nope, too late, you died and already brought your will up for this weird moon thing of yours so all your stuff’s mine now.”
In hindsight Fry probably shouldn’t have even said anything about that part of his will but it was too late now. Though, it didn’t really matter much anyway, Bender had always had a ‘your stuff is my stuff’ attitude that had only grown stronger since they’d started dating. So really, Bender being the legal owner of all his stuff probably wouldn’t change much. … Sharing a body for however long they would have to probably would though. Being transferred to his own robot body would certainly change stuff too. In how many different ways though? … That wasn’t something he needed worry about yet. For now he was just glad to still exist.