[MythicDusk]

Chip's hands shook slightly as they searched for the catch built into the hinges, feeling and hearing a soft click on the left and then the right, they slowly lowered their arms and nodded.

It was hard to keep anything secret, especially with their heart on display. They could hear the heavy thumping of their own heart, picking up in speed with the anxiety that pushed into their brain.

A thousand what-ifs began spilling into them, causing them to bare teeth and suck in a tight breath, their partially exposed lungs inflating. "Just- don't grab my heart too hard, yeah?" Chip murmured, looking to a side, staring at one of their abandoned projects as they tried to stop their stomach from turning.

[Mousen]

Genevieve knew what she had to do, but that didn't mean she wasn't nervous. She raised her hand up to eye-level and found it unnaturally still, not even her shoulders as they gently moved with each breath she took disturbed it. She'd been well-trained, not for this, but the things she was used to repairing took up space in forth and fifth dimensional space, so by comparison this should be easy, right?

"Horatio, put on a set of gloves and get ready to help me," she hissed to him. She turned to look at Chip. "It should be fine, but Horatio trained as a nurse for awhile." What she didn't tell Chip was how Horatio had a knack for dealing with emergencies.

She moved over a small stool with her feet, and sat down. She looked at Chip, her eyes boring into theirs for a moment. "I'm going to start."

Horatio coughed from behind her, and handed her a very fine silver implement. "Sterilised?" she asked.

"Yes."

She used her hands first, to follow the wire up to it's source, where it moved from the breastbone and connected with the thread of wires that connected to Chip's spinal cord. Chip's diagrams had it nearly weaving into one of several wires, but instead it was loose.

She used the silver implement to begin delicately push the wire out from where it had gotten tangled. "How does that feel? Are you in pain?"

[MythicDusk]

Chip took a careful breath at the strange sensations, their fingers tensing and flexing on their lap as they closed their eyes, their face pulling into one of distress. "Its fine, it's gonna hurt-" They gasped, a tugging sensation on their innards, near their spine, behind the heart. It was a sensation that made them want to spring away. That made their every animal instinct scream.

It was a good thing that the wire disconnected their motor functions, or they would have been across the room with that wire and their vein in Genevieve's hand.

They licked their lips slowly, their eyes still tight shut. "It's gonna hurt really badly, but it doesn't matter. Just keep going and follow the diagrams. I'll get feeling back in my arms when it's all done."

[Mousen]

"We ought to have sedated you," she said, grimacing. She was used to dealing with machines, things that didn't think or feel, or even if they did think they certainly couldn't feel pain. She wasn't a doctor, but then, what doctor on earth would know how to deal with Chip's complex mechanics? It struck her that while she wasn't the perfect person for this, she was here now. She could do some good.

"It does matter, but I'm going to keep going. Breathe steadily for me, okay? Seven seconds in, seven seconds out. Tell me if you've got to flinch or move, and I'll stop." Genevieve started work again, and it was delicate work, pushing and manipulating the wire to get it first out from around the vein and then to thread it back through where it needed to go. True to her word, her hands were steady.

It took her a few minutes to fully untangle the wire. There she paused, letting out a breath. She handed Horatio the silver implement and loosened some of the tension in her shoulders. "You're doing so well. So well."

She took the implement back from Horatio and began weave the wire where it should of been, glancing at the diagrams to make sure she was weaving it into the right thread, and up towards the right connecting point. "Almost done. You're doing great."

[MythicDusk]

Chip felt all the joints in their body seize painfully. They laughed weakly, tears spiking at the corners of their eyes. "Sedation doesn't work on me. If it did, The Overbody would have grabbed me a long time ago-" Their words were cut off with a sharp yelp, though their body didn't move.

"Oh- oh fuck okay. God that feels plainly awful. How did I manage to do this to myself?" They swallowed carefully, their body wanting to tremble with the pain so badly. They squeezed their eyes shut, feeling the tears fall free and fast. They tried so hard to keep breathing, but the hands inside their chest cavity made them nervous about it.

[Mousen]

Genevieve nodded. "Ah. Makes sense." She didn't question what went into making a person immune to sedation, although she could guess. Chip already had modifications in their skull and nervous system, it probably wasn't too difficult to start enhancing things, once all the hardware for such modifications was there to begin with.

"Two minutes," she said. "It'll be okay." Weaving the wire in was less delicate, but more fiddly. There was less to damage, but pushing it where it needed to go was more difficult. She could feel a bead of sweat running down her brow. She leaned over to check the diagram again. Almost there.

She pushed the wire though, manipulating it so it was within a hair's width of connecting to Chip's nervous system. Then she checked, and triple checked that she'd done everything necessary. "I'm almost done," she said. She pushed the wire into place, and looked up at them.

"How does that feel?"

[MythicDusk]

They felt life return to their limbs, felt the blood flow again, felt the system solution flow with it. Chip wondered if Genevieve could see the peculiar white veins carefully weaved with bloodvessels.

Chip wondered if Genevieve would ask.

Slowly, they flexed their fingers, wriggled their toes, shifted their arms and rolled their shoulders. They nodded slowly, the last remnants of pain being flushed from their joints with the warmth of blood. "Good, a lot better. Thank you." They moved their hands, pressing carefully against the hinges on the covering for their chest cavity, swinging both sides carefully shut.

"Thank you, both of you."

[Mousen]

Genevieve peeled off her surgical gloves as Chip got up and stretched. She was giddy with relief, the adrenaline hitting her suddenly. "Thank god!" she raised her arms above her head in success, and without thinking flung them around Chip's neck, and hugged him. "I was so scared! I'm so glad you're okay."

She could hear Horatio laughing, equally relieved behind her. Then she looked between herself and Chip and as if only just realising what she'd done she stepped back, her expression sheepish. "I'm sorry. I'm a hugger. I'm just glad you're okay." She didn't know whether she'd overstepped the mark, although if what she'd just managed hadn't bonded them somewhat she didn't know what would.

[MythicDusk]

It had been a long time since Chip had recieved human contact. It took them by surprise for a moment, made their throat constrict and their hands clench. After a moment, they carefully patted Genevieve on the back, looking to Horatio for any kind of hint as to what they should do.

When Genevieve let go, Chip couldn't help but sag slightly, exhaustion tumbling through them. "It's fine. Its just been a while since I've uh- well, since I've had any human contact, really." They shrugged slightly, rubbing at their chin with a weak smile. "But really, thank you. I won't forget this."

[Mousen]

Horatio caught Chip's eye and shrugged. Genevieve was a force of nature, he wasn't sure there was much you could do other than go with it and hope for the best. It generally worked out for him, anyway.

Genevieve looked at them, tilting her head. "Well, we're here," she said softly. Perhaps suggesting more contact wasn't the best thing right now, but she couldn't imagine how isolated they must be, living day after day with no other humans around them. "It's no trouble. Anything we can do to help."

"You should rest," Horatio said. "I'll make sure Genevieve doesn't collapse on the floor when she comes down from her adrenaline high."

"I'll be fine," she said, but made her way over to him anyway. He wrapped an arm around her.

[MythicDusk]

Chip felt something constrict in them, maybe jealousy at the closeness of their visitors. Maybe it was their innards getting used to the new placement of the wire. Even so, Chip managed to smile slightly. "Yeah, you're free to use my couch, or wherever might be comfortable. I wouldn't suggest the floor, Butters may run you over, or sweep you." As if on que, the small butler-bot wheeled past, tutting at the burned floor again.

"I wish you had told me that we were to expect visitors, I would have truly tried cleaning this mess of a floor." The small robot gave a disgruntled sigh, shifting projects from workbenches to shelves and back again, before wheeling away, deeper into the bunker with another disgruntled sigh.

"Ignore him, he's upset because I used to put butter on his wheels."

[Mousen]

Horatio rested his head on Genevieve's shoulder, as she leaned into his touch. They weren't particularly a couple for public affection, let alone in someone else's house, but it had been a long day for everyone involved. "The sofa it is, then. Thank you for the hospitality, Chip."

Genevieve nodded in agreement, her eyes following the little robot as it wheeled itself around the room. "If you have even the faintest feeling something is wrong, come and wake me up and I'll take another look at everything."

"Wait," Horatio said as if he were only just catching onto the joke. "Why on earth did you put butter on his wheels?"

Beside him, Genevieve barked out a laugh.

[MythicDusk]

Chip nodded at Genevieve's words, moving back to one of the workbenches to hunch over it with their many tools pinned to a magnetic boardo n the wall behind it.

At Horatio's question, Chip felt a grin creep across their face, plucking a screwdriver from the wall, glancing at it before replacing it and grabbing a much finer one. "I was young, couldn't pronounce 'Clarence'." They tapped the glowing LEDs in their head with the point of the screwdriver. "And when it was all put back together, my impulse control was damaged for a while. I just did whatever I felt like." They smiled wider as Butters wheeled back in, seemingly cursing in binary. "And what I felt like doing was putting butter on the butler-bot's wheels."

"The butter was also incredibly expensive and dangerous to have, to be only used during the most cherished of moments."
"But Butters, they are cherished moments to me."
"Nettle, if I had any capacity for violence, I would kill you. It is only your parent's superior programming that keeps you alive."
"Aw, shucks, Clarence. I love you too."

[Mousen]

If there was an expression caught mid-way between amused and horrified Horatio managed i,t his eyebrows raised, the corner of his mouth tugged upwards. "Good grief," he said. "Only you, Chip." There was fondness creeping into it too, an unexpected warmth in his voice.

Genevieve was more concerned by the robot. "Is he always so violently minded, Chip? I'm not sure that's... hm... typical. Or particularly helpful. I don't appreciate homicidal desires in AIs generally." She frowned as she looked at Clarence, the mechanic in her itching to take him apart to get a good look at his personality matrix. That said, if Chip's parent's programming was as good as the robot was making it out to be perhaps it'd be wisest to not touch it at all, especially as tired as she was.

She moved from leaning against Horatio to curled up on the sofa. He perched on the arm.

"Wait," Horatio said suddenly. "Nettle? Is that a nick name?"

[MythicDusk]

Chip spun on their seat, an old, worn out thing that was more used just to take their weight off their legs as they worked. there was sure as hell no comfort in it. They watched as Clarence wheeled past, tutting louder and grinned at Genevieve's question. "Its all bluster, my parents wanted to make him feel more human to me, as a kid. Incase anything, yknow." They shrugged slow and Clarence wheeled to a stop, looking over to Chip, his light sensors closing and opening in a slow blink as he processed. Then he began to wheel away.

"In case anything happened, I would still have. Something. I mean, I have their personalities on my computer, as an AI, but it. Hurts too much to start it up." They couldn't help the weak sniffle, laughing weakly as they wipes a tear away with their wrist. "Half of the designs are actually from those AI's. They still work in the background, with all of Dad's intelligence and Mom's tenacity. It just makes me cry to hear them speak." Their voice dropped to an almost whisper as Buttlers wheeled forward, offering a plate of what seemed to be candied apple slices. He placed it gently on the workbench before patting Chip's knee, wheeling away to do something else.

"And no, it isn't a nickname. Its the name my mother gave me. I just prefer Chip."