After the fire, we all went home. Preston and Rob negotiated prices with the boss, Choco was nowhere to be found (as expected), and I sat on the livingroom couch with Nooch, still holding his hand.

"Uh, how much battery do you have?" I asked, attempting to end the awkwardness with conversation.

"Oh, I've been fully charged for like an hour now," Nooch said with a small laugh. "I just like holding your hand."

"Oh, uh..." I stuttered, suddenly finding my kneecaps very interesting.

"Dude, you're blushing a lot," Nooch said, looking at my face. "I have a thermal vision setting and your entire face is blood red."

"AHHH," I said, ripping my immobile hand away from Nooch's and covering my face with both of them. If you could speak a keyboard mash, that would be the description of the noise I made. "You're a robot. I'm not romantically attracted to you."

"You sure about that, Petey?" Nooch said smugly. He grabbed both my cheeks with his cold, metal hands and raised my face so our eyes met. "What if I told you that I would totally kiss you right now if I had lips?"

I furrowed my brows. "I would probably reply with the notion that you, are still, in fact a robot. And you're just teasing me."

"You caught me," Nooch said, dropping his hands from my face and leaning back. "I'm just teasing you. I'm not lying, though. I totally would kiss you if I had lips. And if I could feel things."

"You can't feel things?"

"I'm made of metal. No nervous system here," Nooch said.

"Why do you like holding my hand so much, then?"

This question seemed to trip the robot up. He paused, and I could almost see the gears turning inside his head.

"Because I like to imagine," he said wistfully. "I like to imagine what it would be like to feel your hand."

"Jesus, this is getting too sappy for my liking," I said, leaning back against the couch and stretching my shoulders. "I'm gonna get some food. Care to lend me a hand?"

~~~

I had been sleeping with my injured hands hanging off the bed when Choco woke me up.

"Look, I know it's the middle of the night, but..." Choco began, sitting on the bed next to me. I could barely see his figure in the near pitch darkness.

"Choco?" I mumbled groggily.

"I need to talk to you. It's important."

"So important that it couldn't wait until morning?" I complained.

"Yes, actually," Choco said. "Listen, the boss told me that you've been hanging with Nooch a whole lot."

"Well, yeah," I said, as though it was obvious. I used my elbows to prop myself up. "I'm the only thing that can recharge him right now."

"No, but, like," Choco began, "I mean, like, the boss noticed that your interactions are...more than just that."

"What are you implying?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. I was suddenly worried that our romantic interaction from earlier had not been kept just between us.

"Petey, Nooch is dangerous," Choco said. "I...I'm not supposed to tell you this...but there's a good reason we shut him down, alright?"

"Don't tell me, then," I said. "I'm tired, dude. If I'm not supposed to know, then maybe I shouldn't know. Can I go back to bed now?"

"No, I want to tell you," Choco looked at me seriously, grabbing my shoulders. "You need to know."

I sighed. "Alright then, but make it quick."

Choco took a deep breath. "Back when Five Seasons was just me and Lac - er, the boss, we found a robot lying in the back of an alley. It looked rather new, so we took it home, recharged it with a redstone torch, and found that it had no memory of anything.

"So we let him become a member of Five Seasons. He was good at killing people quick and clean, and was also sarcastic enough to keep us entertained on boring days. He wasn't a bad guy to have around. That was until, however, the government found our headquarters.

"We'd kept ourselves hidden stupidly well, so we had no idea how we could have been found. We ran and hid for a while, until the government decided we weren't worth their time anymore, and then we found another hideout.

"The problem was, the government found us there, as well. There was no connection between the two places. The only way we could have been found was if one of us was a spy. We instantly suspected Nooch.

"So we shut him down, and dragged along his limp robotic body with us as we hid from the government once again. We came to this location, sealed him away in the basement, and never activated him again. Preston showed up, got curious, and found out the whole story. Now you're here, and you've reactivated the spy that gave all our information to the government. We're in danger, Petey."

I blinked. "What? Really?"

"Yeah," Choco said, taking a deep breath. "Look, I know you like him, but..."

"What? I don't l-like him!" I exclaimed defensively. My mind was only on what had happened earlier, which I didn't want anyone to find out about.

Choco rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I know you're his friend and all, but he needs to be shut down. We're going to be found, and I don't think we'll be able to escape capture this time."

I paused, taking it all in. The guy who wished he could feel things just to feel my hand was a government spy. The guy who wanted to kiss me was a government spy.

There had to be some way to shut down communications, right? So that he couldn't send transmissions to the government. Then he wouldn't have to be shut down.

It felt like there were rocks in my stomach.

"...are you okay?" Choco asked gently.

"Yeah," I said sadly. "Let me talk to him before he gets shut down, alright?"

"Okay," Choco said. "But we're shutting him down tomorrow."

~~~

Whoa, two chapters in ONE DAY?? I'm on fire.

Anyway, random question, what's your Harry Potter house? I'm a Hufflepuff!

(P.S. I have a whole folder for this book, and in that folder is a document labeled "IMPORTANT QUOTE" and the only text in the document is "wow, it's fifty shades of gay up in here")