Take This Heart, It's Ticking Like A Cheap Clock

Tera stood in the middle of the room, one arm wrapped around her waist while her other hand rested under her chin; her finger pressed on her lips in thought. It had been a long time since she'd had someone this good-looking in her bedroom. The last time was before the disaster had happened and Ryan had come over to say goodbye before he went on a family trip. And 'goodbye' meant him kissing the life out of her and both of them doing things she'd rather her stepfather didn't know about.

If only he hadn't gone on that family trip, she thought bitterly, tears threatening to form in her eyes. Then she might not be standing here looking at some robot-man-thing she'd made out of pure boredom and by sheer accident.

The thing that she'd created a mere half hour ago was standing in front of her, staring blankly yet with a pleasant smile on his face. He was a good few inches taller than Tera, so she had to look upwards into those deeply mesmerizing, chocolate brown eyes. She'd first noticed this down in the basement, when she decided it was best if she attempted to look at his face; rather than have her eyes all over his naked body.

She quickly glanced over his now semi-covered body. Tera had managed to find a pair of black jeans that she didn't wear anymore as they were too loose for her skinny frame. And strangely enough, they fitted the man very well. However, they would have fitted him perfectly, if he didn't have such a muscular build that she'd had to leave them hanging around his waist. Which showed off his defined hip bones and a trail of dark hair running from his belly button and disappearing under the waistband of the jeans.

If this had been a real man, Tera would be having a hard time containing herself right now. And that's she had to keep forcing herself to remember, that he wasn't real at all. He wasn't flesh, blood and bone like she was. He didn't have a beating heart. He had a...hell, Tera didn't even know what the fuck he had inside of him. She didn't really care right now. All that she cared about was the fact that he was a robot she had made and there was no way of getting rid of him.

***

"Tera, what are we doing?"

She sighed angrily and rolled her eyes for what must have been the hundredth time in the last forty minutes.

"I already told you, we're watching TV."

"And what is this...TV?"

Tera clenched her fist tighter around the remote and answered through gritted teeth, "Like I said, it's an amazing invention designed to take my mind off idiots like you."

She turned her head back to the screen, covering half of her face with her hand and resting her elbow on the leather arm of the sofa; just so she didn't have to look at him.

"And what if it doesn't?"

"Well it would if you just shut the fuck up!" Tera screamed, whipping her head round to face the robot sat to her left, who just looked at her in amusement.

The air between them was silent, only being destroyed by the loud music that blared from the TV's speakers, where, on screen a band with sharply cut hair and weird clothing jumped around on the stage they were performing on. Tera averted her attention back to the screen, ignoring the sickening anger rising in her stomach then closing her eyes.

Already she hated being around him and she hadn't even spent more than two hours in his company. What's more, in her automatic-hatred state, she hadn't even bothered to think of a name for the heap of crap.

"So...like, what do you want your name to be?" she asked in a quiet voice, almost sounding sorry for her outburst.

The robot did something that resembled a shrug, "I don't really know."

Tera sighed softly and ran her hands gently through her pale blond hair. She knew this wasn't going to go well...

"What would you like me to be called?"

That so wasn't the answer she was expecting. She was waiting for him to come out with something like 'I don't know what a name is,' or maybe a brilliant comment like 'TV'; seeing as though they were currently watching one.

"Well," Tera cleared her throat and shuffled around in her seat to face him, "It's totally up to you. I'd get the book of baby names out if I knew where it was...but I doubt that'd really be any help."

The robot eyed her curiously, "Where did you get your name?"

Tera snorted, "I don't know. My mom probably thought of it. She usually came up with weird things, so it was inevitable that my name was no exception."

Why was she even telling him this? Sure, it was like talking to someone who ate up every word you said and took it as gospel. But this was ridiculous! She was practically pouring her heart out to a robot. A fucking robot!

"Look, where I got my name from doesn't matter," she said after her brainwave, "so let's just think about yours. Okay?"

He nodded and smiled.

Jesus, Tera thought rolling her eyes, you'd have thought he didn't have a brain the way he responded to her.

'Wait a second...' a voice in her head suddenly piped up. Tera stayed perfectly still as she thought over her idea.

Brain uses the same letters as the name Brian. This robot-thing doesn't have either of those. So...

"I know what we can call you!" Tera exclaimed, practically bouncing up and down in her seat.

"What?" he asked, smiling.

"Brian! It's perfect for you! Seeing as the letters are the same as brain and you don't have one of those..."

He looked at her blankly.

'Point proven.' she laughed to herself.

"Brian...I like it." he replied, smiling again.

And this time, Tera smiled back.