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The dream started like this.
He was suspended from the ceiling, in his new chassis, not the old one. His left arm and both legs were removed, but there was no blood. The limbs simply ended in stumps. His vision blurred as he looked around, trying to determine where he was.
It was a room in one of the IMC’s Typhon facilities. He knew this place.
“Oi, Titan! You’re going to open up and give me what I want.”
He knew that voice.
His gaze finally sharpened in time to see Kuben Blisk. Rage was his first instinct, but there was nothing he could do. His one attempt at struggling barely moved the cables holding him in place. Blisk sighed in frustration and moved to the other end of the room. There was a figure tied to a chair.
Tai? BT said, or tried to. He felt his lips move, but no sound came out. He tried to struggle again—I have to get to him, I have to protect my pilot—but again, he couldn’t move.
“So tell your Titan, if he doesn’t open up, I will shoot you in the head.”
This time, his voice did work. “Pilot - !”
Blisk turned around. There was a malicious look in his eyes. He grabbed the figure on the chair and started dragging him forward. “Right here. Right here. You see him now?”
He threw the figure down.
It was Cooper. Not Lastimosa. But it was Lastimosa. The figure was somehow both of them at once, looking like Cooper, registering as Cooper, but also registering as Lastimosa. It was confusing, but there was one thing he knew for sure: his pilot was in danger.
Protocol Three.
He struggled against the cables again. He tried, but there was nothing he could do.
“I don’t care how broken you are. I know some things still work in there. So, open up. Or I’m going to shoot your pilot in the head.”
BT froze.
His body was trembling. There was a gun pointed at his pilot’s head. There was nothing he could do. Last time this happened he had his Acolyte Pods, he could do something, he could contact his pilot and let him know that everything was going to be okay. But now…
I don’t know what he wants.
It wasn’t the Ark…or was it? They were making progress in their search for other Arks. If he could give enough information to make Blisk lower the weapon…he didn’t have to say everything, he just had to say enough to stop this…
But when he opened his mouth, no sound came out.
Because while his third protocol dictated that he protect his pilot, his second protocol dictated that he uphold the mission. The mission swore them to secrecy, and he had no way to use the information as a ruse the way he had with the Ark last time.
There was nothing he could do.
“You still remember numbers, don’t you?”
He tried, he tried, but even in this new body, he wasn’t human. He was a Titan, and Titans followed their protocols. No matter what.
“I’m going to count to three.”
It was happening again.
In a last-ditch effort to stop this, BT reached out with his one intact arm. Perhaps if he could grab his pilot, drag him out of the line of fire—he was so close, he almost touched the top of his head, but it wasn’t enough.
“One.”
It wasn’t enough.
“Two.”
There was nothing.
And then his pilot looked up, and he knew it was Cooper. It was only Jack, because Tai Lastimosa was dead and buried on Typhon and BT had watched it happen. This was Jack Cooper, and he was about to have the same fate, and there was nothing-
“BT.”
-he could do-
“Three.”
His entire body stiffened, as though he were the one who had been shot and not Cooper.
But when he opened his eyes, he wasn’t hanging from the ceiling anymore. All four of his limbs were intact. He sat up to check, flexing his fingers and toes, feeling that his legs were there again. Everything intact and operational. When he looked around the room, he didn’t see an IMC hanger bay. He saw the shared living quarters that he’d been sharing with…
Jack.
BT looked at the other bed. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the low light, but when they did, he saw a person-shaped lump under the covers. BT got out of his own bed and walked across the room as silently as he could. Cooper was there, lying on his side with the covers pulled up to his ears, the way he always did. BT’s chest still felt tight, until he leaned close to Cooper’s face and heard him breathing.
Cooper was alive. Jack was alive.
And yet, despite knowing that his ears worked fine, BT couldn’t trust that sound. He needed more evidence. Most of Cooper was covered in blankets, but there was one hand exposed, clutching at the pillow. BT didn’t want to wake his pilot, but he had to know. He was careful as he reached out to that exposed hand—more accurately, for his wrist. His fingers pressed against the pulse. He counted the beats under his fingers and watched a nearby clock. If his mental calculations were correct, he had the normal heart rate of a sleeping adult human.
Cooper was alive, and resting, and it had all been a dream.
BT’s shoulders slumped with relief. The pained feeling in his chest finally stopped. Everything was fine. Cooper was okay. BT wasn’t tired anymore; he could stay there and watch him, just to be sure…
“BT?”
Oh.
Cooper was awake.
BT’s face felt hot. “I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“’s fine, it’s…” Cooper sat up slowly. He was wearing a sleeveless top; BT’s heart rate picked up again at the sight of a bandage on his pilot’s upper arm, until he remembered that it was from a recent tattoo. Technically a form of injury, but nothing lethal. “Everything okay?”
It had been. Now BT was embarrassed, an emotion he had decided very early on that he didn’t like and wanted to avoid.
“…I had a nightmare,” he said finally. “About Typhon, when Blisk…”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. Even speaking that criminal’s name made the memories come back. He didn’t want to remember that day. The dream had been bad enough.
Cooper, at least, looked sympathetic and not judgmental. “Shit…I’m sorry.” He rubbed his eyes. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. I only wanted to make sure you were safe.” It sounded illogical now that he’d said it out loud. Was this what every nightmare was like? So real that it made you do illogical things? “I didn’t mean to wake you. You can go back to sleep.”
“Hmm.” Cooper lay back down, watching BT carefully. There was a long pause where BT didn’t move. They only stared at each other.
“…I find sleep works better when you close your eyes,” BT said, thinking that perhaps a joke would help.
Cooper did smile, but he looked worried. “You should sleep, too.”
“I’m not tired.”
“So…what, you’re going to just sit here and watch me sleep?”
That had been his plan. “…is that…wrong?”
“Uh, little weird, not going to lie, but I’m more worried about…what time is it?” Cooper twisted his head to look at the clock. It was 0147 hours. BT hadn’t realized. “Buddy, you can’t have gotten more than four hours.” That was true; BT could only shrug in acquiescence. “That’s not great.”
“I don’t believe I’ll be able to sleep if I can’t be sure you’re safe,” BT admitted. “Can I sleep in the chair?”
Cooper sat back up. “I mean, you could, but let’s…not.” To BT’s surprise, his pilot got out of bed. “Here, help me with this.”
The two of them moved Cooper’s mattress onto the floor, in a secure corner of the room. After that, they got BT’s mattress, laying it down next to Cooper’s, between him and the door. Once it was done, Cooper lay down on his mattress and patted BT’s mattress. “Here. Nothing’s getting to me without getting past you first, right?”
He was right; the position of the mattress gave him the ability to see the door without them being directly in its line of sight, due to the furniture placement and BT would be in between Cooper and the door. It was a good tactic. In combination with the exhaustion that had started to slowly re-load in his mind, it was enough to make BT lie down. He lay on his back, hands folded on his chest. Cooper slept on his side again, the blankets pulled up, facing BT. “Just promise me you’ll try to sleep, okay?” Cooper muttered, his eyes already closing. “You don’t want to know what sleep deprived feels like.”
“Is it like low battery?”
“Something like that. Except with headaches, sometimes. I get headaches.” Cooper yawned and pulled the covers up higher. “It sucks.”
It was a figure of speech, BT knew, but he was briefly tempted to ask Cooper what exactly it sucked. His pilot always found it amusing when BT didn’t know (or pretended he didn’t know) what various phrases meant. But making him laugh would be taking away from him sleeping, so BT instead said, “I promise I will try to sleep. Goodnight, Jack.”
“’Night, BT.”
Despite his promise, BT waited until he was sure that Cooper was asleep before he closed his eyes.
He shouldn’t have felt any degree of calm—didn’t think he would, after the scare the nightmare had given him—but he did. Maybe it was the fact that Cooper was close, within arm’s reach, barricaded from any potential harm by BT’s taller and heavier form just like things had been before, that reassured him. Maybe it was the simple fact that he knew Cooper was alive that did it. Or, perhaps, it was the still-logical part of his mind that reminded him they were in a highly secure base on a Militia-controlled planet, and that anyone who wanted to hurt Cooper would have a difficult time getting through.
Maybe it was all three of those things, but BT fell asleep not long after Jack.
He woke up after him as well, though not long. Cooper had sat up and was peering under his bandage as BT opened his eyes. “Is it healing all right?” BT asked.
“Oh, hey, good morning. Yeah, looking good.” Cooper pushed the bandage back into place and stretched. “Feel better?”
“Yes.” BT sat up as well. Fortunately, he wasn’t feeling any kind of negative effects from sleeping on the floor—even if he was technically sleeping on a mattress. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“Nah, don’t be. It’s…” Cooper hesitated and rubbed the back of his neck. “Uhm…not gonna lie? A few times when I went out to sleep in the hanger it was because…I remembered Typhon, too. So I think we’re even now.”
That didn’t surprise BT, though it certainly made him feel melancholy. Melancholy was like sadness, but not as strong. “Yes,” he agreed. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Cooper patted him on the shoulder and stood. “What do you think? Breakfast?”
“Yes.” Cooper held out a hand to BT; he took it and used the leverage to stand. “Breakfast.”
The night was over. His pilot was still here and alive. They were going to have breakfast.
No need to dwell on dreams anymore.