The Impulse Buy
Fandom: Helluva Boss
Ship: Robo Fizz/Concord (OC)
Word Count: 1,061
Warnings: This story is generally sexual in nature. It also explores trauma and abuse, including sexual abuse and rape. This chapter does not yet explore any of these subjects but be aware it is an ever present theme.
Concord hadn’t meant to visit a pawnshop today, but he somehow found himself looped into one. Quite literally. He had been simply passing by when a robotic arm came out of nowhere to wrap around his waist and reeled him in towards an animated jester.
“Hey-hey-hey, pal, you look like you could use a fr-friend!”
Concord smiled at the Fizzarolli Personal Companion as it did its best to look cheerful and desirable all at once. It tried a few different poses including one that involved leaning against his shoulder. It was a ridiculous pose with the height difference. But it didn’t distract Concord from taking note of the fact that this Fizzarolli was a little worse for wear. The voice grated on his ear a bit and was filled with static even when it didn’t glitch. It was clear he had not been well cared for and that pulled at Concord’s heart strings.
“I’m always happy to make new friends,” the imp replied agreeably, trying to find a price on the poor thing. “How many owners have you had?”
“Only two. But one was a little old lady who only took me out for a ride on Sundays.”
He couldn’t even keep a straight face as he delivered that old line, snickering behind a hand. Concord gave him an amused look and circled around behind him.
“What about the other?”
“Why talk about the p-p-past when we can discuss what I can do for you?”
Avoiding the question. He’d have to come back to that one later. Between that and his current condition, his owners couldn’t have been very pleasant people. Neglectful at best. The jester certainly seemed starved enough for attention.
“I’m more interested in what I can do for you, actually.”
The Fizzarolli tilted his head in confusion. That seemed to have stopped the onslaught of sales attempts. It gave Concord time to inspect him more. Tattered clothes were easy to fix. There were surely places that sold replacements. That wouldn’t cost too much, he hoped. But other things were going to require a mechanic.
“Like what you see?” the Fizzarolli asked after a moment of silence.
He’d made him nervous with his inspection. But Concord just made a noncommittal sound as he inspected the robot’s other arm.
“This is broken, isn’t it?”
“It’s still te-te-technically functional, see.”
The arm tried to extend but it made such an ear-splitting screech of metal scraping across metal that Concord cringed, his normally unflappable demeanor shaken. The pawnshop owner came over to investigate.
“Hey, don’t fuck up my merchandise. This ain’t a peep show. You buyin’ or not?”
The Fizzarolli took a step to the right and placed himself back up on the top shelf, giving Concord a hopeful look as he kicked his feet. He sighed as he brushed off his sweater and regained his composure, finally spotting the price tag. He plucked it off the shelf and eyed it dubiously. He definitely couldn’t afford that.
“I’m interested but as I’ve just demonstrated, this Fizzarolli is quite damaged. Your price is rather high for what I’ve found already. And that doesn’t take into account internal issues I can’t see. I’ll offer you half your asking price without checking for more. Or I can assess the full extent of the damage and base my negotiations on that. Your choice.”
The shopkeeper’s eyes betrayed his surprise but his mouth remained a tight line. He hoped he’d take the bluff. Even if Concord looked further, he was no mechanic. He couldn’t spot less obvious injuries, much less determine how that decreased the price. But he was almost certain the man staring him down knew exactly how broken this Fizzarolli was, so why not let him do the math? Finally the shopkeeper waved a hand in dismissal.
“Ah, take ‘im. He’s more trouble than he’s worth anyway. Always botherin’ my customers. You’d think something that tries to sell itself’d be Satan sent. Turns out most people don’t like being harassed by a sex doll.”
“I will be more than happy to take him off your hands,” Concord stated, counting out the payment.
“Yeah, bet you are,” the shopkeeper shot back, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
Concord chose not to acknowledge him and turned to hold a hand out to his new friend.
“Let’s go home, Fizzarolli.”
The Fizzarolli extended his arm to take his hand before hopping off the shelf. As they walked out the door, he turned and stuck a wriggling tongue out at the shopkeeper. Concord noticed but chose not to acknowledge this either.
“I don’t live far from here. My name is Concord, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, hot stuff.”
The Fizzarolli laced their fingers and swung their arms as they walked, clearly happy to be out of that shop.
“Do you have a name you like or is Fizzarolli okay?”
“I’m y-yours now, babe. You can call me what you want.”
Concord didn’t really like the idea of choosing someone else’s name. But this was an AI and it might be hard for him to take the initiative to choose his own. He didn’t have enough experience with robots to know.
“I can call you Fizzarolli for now, but if you do have something you want me to call you, I’m glad to do so.”
Fizzarolli tilted his head again in obvious confusion and Concord smiled at him softly.
“We’ll work on it.”
The rest of the walk was pretty quiet and Concord spent it thinking about how this extremely impulsive purchase would affect the rest of his life. The physical defects alone would be expensive to fix and he’d likely have to save up for them. But the real sacrifice would be the time-sink in resolving the AIs obvious psychological issues. Not that it wasn’t a challenge Concord looked forward to.
He was so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed the strange looks other pedestrians were giving him. Until Fizzarolli’s happy waving caught his attention. Concord looked around as he realized he was walking down the road, holding hands with a sex bot.
“Hi,” he muttered shyly as they passed another rubbernecker. “Nice weather.”
The woman shielded her child’s face against her skirt with a huffy look. Fizzarolli just laughed as Concord shielded his face with his hand for the final leg of the walk, avoiding eye contact.