Chapter Text
Click. Click click clack.
The room is dark, and there isn’t a single sound other than the clicks resounding from the keyboard. The only thing that could count as a light source is the flash of white light coming from the computer in front of him, illuminating his face.
“How to make friends.”
Click. Enter.
Terminator wishes he could add, “Also I am a robot." but that probably wouldn’t yield as many results as he’d like to see.
Ever since he has been hanging around with Sarah and John, they ( mostly John ) have been urging him to socialize a bit more, get new hobbies, and make new friends because he apparently looks “lonely”. John insists that these would make other people see him as more “normal” but he’s pretty sure he’s only saying this because all Terminator’s been doing this month as a free-time activity is sitting in front of the TV and watching whichever trashy telenovela or scammy gameshow is on at that moment.
He tries to argue that he does have a potential friend, actually, a guy named Robocop ( or Murphy but he’s only ever heard his friend call him that before, and he’s really not sure if this guy even sees him as a friend. ) He works at the precinct two blocks down from where they’re currently staying. They hadn’t started off on good terms exactly, after a freak “accident” by a bunch of hooligans on the street had damaged Terminator’s face and left his electronic innards visible for the whole world to see. Robocop had been wary of him a lot after that, making sure to track him intently with his eyes every time they passed by each other on the street. ( At least he thought so. It was hard to tell if he was looking at anything because of the pitch-black visor.) He’d stopped though, after seeing him walk with John, coming back from getting ice cream ( two scoops: one scoop chocolate chip, one scoop rocky road.)
He had told him he understood why he was unnerved, but Robocop had just turned his head around and said something about how he had “reminded him of someone he fought before.” A robot that looked exactly like a human. Thinking about it, it was cruel irony for them to meet each other. A robot in the disguise of a human and a human in the disguise of a robot. Polar opposites that also managed to fit like puzzle pieces.
After this, Robocop had actually confronted him, apologizing for judging him and offering a minor job at the precinct that paid decently well, because he wanted to help “ a single dad”. He really didn’t have the heart to deny it back then, and he still can’t now, because isn’t that really what he has become for John?
He drags his eyes to the browser again. His mind tends to drift whenever he thinks about Robocop nowadays, for some reason. His eyes roam over the search results, his sunglasses still perched on his nose, even in the dark room. He clicks on a random link that is _definitely_ leading him to a sketchy site, and like it’s trying to make him sure of it, it’s called “MakeFriends.com”. He starts reading the to-do list that they have so kindly provided him with.
“You can try to become friends with someone by applying these simple steps!
1) Complimenting their personality
2) Complimenting their physique
3) Doing acts of services
4) Spending quality time together
5) Showing physical contact
That seems like an easy-to-follow list with very clear steps, so he doesn’t question it. He is still a bit clueless about human relationships, even though he’s been getting better at it thanks to John and Sarah. He makes a mental list of the instructions and turns off the computer before stepping out of the room, closing the door silently behind him.