Chapter Text
Doc knew the risks. He had calculated them with the very thing he was getting rid of.
Well, not getting rid of it completely. Just upgrading. Replacing. Recycling. His bionics- his face & eye specifically- were in much need of an upgrade. He was always tweaking little things, upgrading smaller components, doing regular maintenance. But that was slow, even boring. He realized now that he would much rather work on proper blueprints & upgrade everything as a whole, though that did require a second pair of hands when it came to the actual application of said blueprints. Unless he was willing to spend weeks on it to avoid going into an unconscious state to avoid the pain that came with it, which did not sound ideal & may even cause more pain in the end.
He had thought over the possible people he could call upon for help with something like this. While Mumbo or Iskall both knew redstone, he already had problems calling for help from people, & the fact he didn’t know those two as well as several others made it even harder.
The next few days were full of planning. Going over proper procedures, practicing on older models, & giving general rundowns on how the different tech worked. It was long despite only being around 4 hours a day, & even without physical labor it always ended in a nice cup of lemonade or iced tea (Arnold Palmer was made on the third day with the remains). He could definitely see how it confused his friend at some parts, but he worked through it slowly & diligently until he knew the basics of complex redstone well. How ironic that phrasing is.
& so the day after that, Saturday morning, he laid down on a rather uncomfortable surgical table after double & triple checking everything. He let himself be strapped down for safety measures knowing he was too strong for his own good at times. He accepted the sedative he was being given despite hating the idea, because it was all Etho. Etho, someone he had known since back in the NHO days. He trusted him with this, with himself. & that’s the last thing he thought of before he slipped into a dreamless sleep for the next 15 hours.
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When he woke up, it was Sunday morning & Etho was by his side, mask hidden by a book. He looked peaceful, but then again he always did. He was a calm person, no matter what you did to him. Before announcing his now conscious presence, he took a moment to bring up invisible progress reports & new files in his cybernetic eye, pleased to see Etho did well. It barely hurt, & the pain was to be expected.
Everything was running smoothly as he viewed the complete system reports & test results, all covered in green much like himself. There were a few red ticks in there as well, signs of little mistakes, appearing to be from panic. It made sense to the cyborg, practicing on old, recyclable models was much different from having someone's sight & functionality on the line.
He looked further into any minor mistake he found, & while only half of them were caught & fixed, they were the important ones. It was a lot, as most tech was. & the rest were things he could very easily fix, like a minor upgrade. Looks like he'd have to go back to his old ways after all.
But he was tired & hadn't had coffee yet. So he did what any biological thing would do in that situation & yawned, showing off the facets of his teeth. They weren’t unusually sharp, but they weren’t human, either. He hated it. He’d much prefer his teeth either be as sharp as a creeper or as dull as a human’s, not this odd middle ground that always gave him something to explain whenever someone noticed them. He grumbled, reaching up & rubbing his good (or rather bad) eye now that he was aware of his own fatigue.
“Good morning, sunshine. How’d I do?” Etho greeted him with a fond smile in his voice. Doc knew he was anxious about it, though. It may be hard to read the masked man, but he had definitely been worrying all morning. He had been waiting here for who knows how long, & the first thing he asked was how he did.
“Stop worrying about it & turn the coffee machine on, will you?” he said with a sigh, then pausing as Etho awkwardly stood. “You don’t actually have to Etho, I could just really go for a cup of coffee & I still need to do manual tests that require physical movement. You did well, I notice you even added in some extra notification files. I’ll be sure to look into whatever note block chaos you’ve created later.” It was his turn to give a fond smile, then. He had missed Etho’s music, however simple it may be. For now, though, it was time to walk. “Alright, here we go.”
It took him 3 tries to stand up completely smoothly, having to wake up his limbs one at a time & then pay attention to how his new eye was intaking & processing information. It made him a little dizzy, a new layout & system of information processing making him look in the wrong places for certain information. That & getting used to the font, this one looked a little odd with umlaut. Then again, ü, ä, & ö looked bad with practically any font. Etho probably thought he'd be using English, to be fair… Which made him chuckle to himself.
Once he was standing, he didn’t bother muffling a groan of protest at how stiff his muscles were. A very lengthy static stretch session was in order, that was for sure. But for now, he did a quick stretch of each of his limbs, & by the time he was done a post-awakening system scan. Yet again, everything came back the same as it was with the pre-awakening system reports, & all was well.
He noted he had lost his lab coat at some point, & noticed it was draped over the back of the chair Etho was reading in. He didn't think too much of it, Etho often snuck off with his spare lab coats at times. It helped him with social anxiety at times, having something familiar to him. But Doc knew he also stole it for fun.
He left the lab coat there, feeling dressed enough in just pants. The sun felt nice after a cold table, & he knew Etho wouldn't mind.
Doc made his way into the kitchen, still rolling his shoulder in an attempt to get rid of the ache in his shoulder blade. It smelt of dark coffee & Etho, which made sense. There was now a fresh pot of black coffee resting in the machine & an Etho at the fridge, grabbing who knows what. It took him only 0.8 of a second to realize he was hungry- Maybe he should turn down the level of analysis on his cybernetics. But either way, he was hungry, & nothing was going to stop him from satisfying that hunger.
Right after he politely asked Etho to move. But he only got to raise a hand, the stealthy man in front of him already aware of his presence. He might've been staring on accident.
"I know you're hungry, I'm making breakfast. I would've made it earlier, but I wasn't sure when you'd wake up." True to his word, Etho was gathering ingredients from the fridge & cupboards as he spoke. Things like bread, tomato, lettuce, cheese… Doc grabbed the cream cheese & Etho smiled with his eyes again.
Doc moved on to grab a cutting board while Etho grabbed a pan & butter, choosing a larger pan so he could fit all four pieces of bread needed at once. Etho buttered the pan as Doc began using cutting tomatoes as a pressure gauging test for his eye, & once he was sure it was measuring everything smoothly & sending information the correct way, he didn't bother with taking his time. He was good at precision, shown by how quickly & efficiently he worked through the different ingredients.
He set the cutting board & knife into the sink for washing later & moved on to the lettuce. Etho was waiting for the pan to heat up, slicing cheese while he did to be efficient. They were a well oiled machine, used to late mornings with comfortable silence.
Just as he was about to grab the lettuce, a much smaller, now ungloved hand stopped him with a sharp tap on the back of it. Doc turned to Etho with a raised brow & was answered with a vague gesture to the sink. Doc sighed, but nodded, no explanation needed. He spent the next minute washing his hands thoroughly in the sink.
Etho, on the other hand, had nabbed his tomato slices from him & was putting them in the pan alongside the bread slices. It'd make the slices themselves taste mildly of tomato, but he knew Doc liked them like that.
The leaves of green were easy to tear, making quick work of the job. He then stacked the leaves in a neat pile for Etho. After the leftover lettuce was put away, he went straight into slicing cheese while his friend flipped the bread & tomatoes. It was a silence filled with scents of roasted tomato & soft chopping. Doc preferred using a knife instead of a cheese slicer or whatever they were called. They looked like a hybrid between a bottle opener & batman, & were just as useful. Not at all. Cheese graters were useful enough, though.
Etho was grabbing two plates & a mug, setting the plates next to the frying pan for when the toast was ready. It wasn’t long now. Doc had just finished with the cheese slices, & Etho was now stealing a couple to put on his sandwich. The toast was still in the pan, so it melted the cheese slightly. Doc didn’t like it like that, Etho did, hence the leftover cheese slices yet to be added. By the time the cheese was melted enough, the bread was toasted to perfection, & two pieces were placed on either plate. Doc was cleaning things up (besides the pan) & putting things away while Etho built the sandwich. Condiments & cream cheese were put away last, coffee was poured for one & Arnold Palmer for the other. The sandwiches were ready, as were drinks, & Doc even grabbed some grapes for the side.
- THE CHEESE SLICER REFERENCE -
