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Chio begrudgingly walked into the main Boardbot office building with a cup of Cogfee in his hand. It was time for the annual, union mandated team bonding exercises. This of course meant a day of Chip being forced to interact with at least one of his coworkers to ‘ get to know them better’ and ‘improve work atmosphere’ to Chip however this just sounded like a bunch of bull. Some corporate mumbo jumbo to make the company look good to their investors, and avoid the oh so terrifying wrath of the union.
So all of the manager level cogs in the company were told that they needed to wake up at the crack of dawn for this event so the company could both satisfy the wants of the union, and avoid having to give any of their managers time off of work and hurt their productivity. The only solace Chip was able to find in the event was the fact that Thomas had been put in charge, he was certainly the most relaxed Cog boss in the company, something Chip could appreciate.
Chip sat himself in a cushioned chair in the corner of the room which acted as both a comfortable place to sit, and as a good excuse to keep himself distanced from any of Thomas’ many, many plants. So Chip continued to silently sip his cogfee while he watched the rest of his colleagues trickle into the room, his discomfort growing in unison with the increasing volume in the room.
After a couple of minutes Thomas, with Mary’s help, silenced the room and read off a speech that had been prepared for him. Chip couldn’t help but fight to stay awake as Thomas spoke in the most monotone voice he’d ever heard. After the speech Thomas explained the few activities that they’d be doing to help improve employee morale before he began to pair everyone off, looking through a list that Chip assumed had been prepared by one of the other cog bosses. With a deep breath Chip silently hoped that he’d be paired with someone he could tolerate, someone he would either get along with, or someone who’d at least sit in comfortable science with him.
“ Mr. Revvigton you and Mr. Bonpyre will be paired together.” Thomas announced and Chip could feel his heart drop into his stomach.
Of all of the cogs in the room Chip had to be paired with the one cog, the Only cog, that he knew he wouldn’t get along with. Hell he would have preferred being paired up with Prester if it meant he didn’t have to talk to Flint. They hadn’t spoken in years and now, at one of the lowest points in his life, he was being forced to interact with the one who got away. Despite his day only just starting it had already been ruined.
He could hear Flint whisper something to Graham before he made his way towards Chip, the room seemed to grow almost unbearably warm as Flint approached, it didn’t help that Chip would feel everyone's eyes on the two of them. Chip looked to Spruce who returned his look with a sympathetic frown on his face, a small island of solace in what Chip was sure was going to be a storm of horrible feelings.
And Chip was mostly correct, as the day drew on he and Flint avoided speaking a single word to each other. This complete silence made for an insufferable first round of team bonding exercises, they suffered through the three legged race, and Flint now had a large dent in his helmet due to a complete lack of communication during a team obstacle course.
So now they were sitting together for a short lunch, or rather breakfast, break. Chip had lost his appetite completely while Flint was in the middle of his first cigar of the day. While the rest of the other managers were, more or less, engaged in some form of conversation Chip was committed to not breaking the silence, having made up his mind that it’d be easier to sit in awkward silence than to face the elephant in the room. That was until Chip heard Flint’s voice, and his heart quickly dropped again, once again taking residence in his stomach.
“ Alright, this has gone on long enough.” Flint sighed as he dropped his cigar onto the ground and snuffed it out with his heel. “ We can’t avoid this conversation forever, not if we intend on both keeping our jobs.”
Chip rolled his eyes, the only defense mechanism he had left to hide how deeply uncomfortable he was becoming. “ Can’t we? I thought we were doing well enough, at least the silence was comfortable.”
“ Comfortable for you maybe, my face still stings after you failed to tell me my foot got caught in that rope.” Flint shot back which caught Chip off guard a little. It seemed to catch Flint a little off guard as well as his eyes briefly widened before he turned away from Chip. “ Look, I know we didn’t end things on the best of terms, but let's be adults about this…”
Chip remained silent, determined to avoid this conversation at all costs.
Flint however expected this resistance. “ Fine, stay quiet all you want, but you can’t sit there and pretend what we’re doing is healthy.” Flint leaned his back against the wall as he looked across the room with a firm look in his eyes. “ It’s been seven years Chip, and I think it's time we both move on.”
Chip scoffed “ As if it's that easy.”
“ And what we’re doing right now is?” Flint’s expression briefly turned into a glare before he let out a low breath and softened his expression yet again. “ You can’t tell me you’re okay avoiding this forever.”
“ What do you want me to say Flint? Even if we apologize and talk this out, what then? It won’t fix anything, we’ll just go back to hating each other in silence like we have been for years!” Chip snarled, his saw revving unintentionally as he snapped his head in Flint’s direction. “Acting all high and mighty about this won’t change anything!”
Chip’s blood ran cold as he looked at Flint’s face. He expected to see anger, frustration, he’d even half expected to see pure hatred in Flint’s eyes, but none of those emotions were there. Flint wasn’t angry, or hurt,or even slightly annoyed, he just looked disappointed. Just when Chip thought he couldn’t feel any worse he felt his heart ache with a pain he hadn’t felt since the night they broke up. Only now it wasn’t just him and Flint in the room fighting, he was surrounded by his colleagues who were all looking at the two of them.
Chip’s pulse quickened and he felt the uncomfortably familiar sensation of his override activating. The room turned a shade of red as his vision began to fade, he had just enough time to kick off of his seat and flee from the room before any sense of reality slipped through his grasp.
Chip felt as though he was floating with only a faint grasp of what was happening around him to pierce through the void that he was trapped in. it was a familiar sensation to him, recently it felt like he was being banished into this prison daily. Left floating and barely conscious as the override pulled the strings, no sense of time or space as he half consciously waited for his confinement to end.
After several hours, or maybe it was only a couple of minutes, Chip felt himself suddenly thrown forward as though he was thrown back into his body once the override finally let him go. He took a moment to regain his senses before he tried to figure out where he was. His vision was foggy, his arms and legs were covered in a pins and needles feeling, and his head felt as though it had been filled with lead.
As his vision cleared he glanced around the room and quickly realized that he was in his office, and that it had only been around twenty or so minutes since the override had activated. He sighed and rolled his head back in frustration. Though he couldn’t help but question if he could somehow spin this into a reason to avoid the rest of the team bonding exercises, but as he tried to shake the feeling of pins and needles out of his hands he heard a gentle knock on his office door before it was slowly opened.
“ Does now look like a good time?” Chip asked in a gruff voice as he saw who else but Flint peek into the room. Chip made a sweeping gesture with his hand towards the mess that the override had no doubt caused.
Flint took a deep breath before he stepped into the room. “ Well unfortunately for us both, Thomas said I need to bring you back or we’d both be written up.”
There was a moment of deeply uncomfortable silence.
“ Chip, I’m really sorry…” Flint began to say only for Chip to shoot him a glare.
“ Really? You’re still doing this?” Chip snarled, unable to hold back the anger he felt brewing in his chest. Yet, part of him wondered exactly why he was feeling so angry like even he didn’t know where these emotions were coming from.
“ Not about..” Flint paused, unsure how to put what he was trying to say into words. “ Not about how we left things… I mean, I’m sorry about pushing you back there.”
Chip’s words were caught in his throat, yet again Flint surprised him by going against any expectation that Chip had before.
Flint sighed as he crossed his arms, folding them close to his chest as he looked anywhere else in the room but at Chip. “ You were clearly uncomfortable and I should have dropped the topic instead of pushing it, that’s my bad.” He glanced at Chip for only a moment before he looked away once again. “ We can spend the rest of the day in silence if you’d like, I imagine you’d rather not be written up for this.”
“ Why is this so important to you?” Chip’s voice was still rather gruff, yet there was a hint of levity behind his words.
It was Flint’s turn to be surprised, genuinely surprised that Chip had elected to speak to him again. “ What? The team bonding exercises? They’re really not important to me, I just don’t want to be written up again.”
Chip would have face palmed if he didn’t have an actual chainsaw for a face. “ No I mean, why do you want to fix things between us? It’s like you said we haven’t spoken for seven years so why now?”
Flint's shoulders dropped slightly. “ It’s because this isn’t healthy for either of us.” Flint for the first time since he’d entered the room looked at Chip, looking directly at him without any sign of looking away. “ We’ve been working together for months now, and we've spoken to each other more today than we have since we got hired.”
“ What is there to talk about Flint?” Chip countered, his stern tone faltering. “ The last time we spoke it was during a fight, and I don’t know why you’d want to be cordial with me after what I said to you…” Chip’s hand trembled as memories of that night flashed through his mind, the anger he felt, the words he said, and the look of absolute hatred Flint gave him when he ran, and worst of all the deep remorse that consumed him for months after.
Flint too winced at just the mention of the fight. “ Well… you aren’t the only one who said something that he regrets that night” Flint’s posture faultured a little more, he was looking much more like the anxious wreck of a cog that Chip knew seven years ago and it made Chip feel incredibly guilty. “ We were young and dumb, and thought we were in love. We were bound to make some mistakes.”
“ Don’t say ‘ Thought’ as though what we felt back then wasn’t real” Chip cut in, his pain evident in his tone. “ It makes it sound like what we had wasn’t real, it may not have ended well but you can’t say you didn’t feel anything.” Chip’s voice fell to a hoarse whisper, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes in spite of his efforts to stop them.
“ Yeah.. you’re probably right, we did love each other , or at least we did at one point.” Flint took a step towards Chip’s desk, hesitating until Chip motioned him towards the chair that stood on the opposite end of the desk from where he was sitting. “ Cog knows how inseparable we were when we started dating.” Flint sat down with a soft, melancholy laugh.
Chip remained silent as he listened to Flint, a feeling of intense and very mixed emotions swirled around in his stomach. Yet in spite of all of these emotions the override hadn’t activated, though his odd fact was currently the furthest thing from Chip’s mind.
Flint fiddled with his thumbs as he continued. “ You know what they say, your first love isn’t meant to last forever.” He laughed a little again, a soft expression on his face as he recalled their time together, smiling in spite of the faint feeling of heartache in his chest, all too similar to the heartache he’d felt back then. “ I remember, we used to be so sure that we’d be different, that we were the exception and nothing could separate us.”
“ But we weren’t the exception…” Chip’s tone was somber
Flint shook his head. “ No we weren’t, and I think we both knew that back then. Even before things went wrong and we drifted apart.” He sighed, folding his hands on Chips’ desk. “ We only started to acknowledge that things weren’t going to last towards the end, but I know we both felt the same long before then.”
“ I just didn’t want to hurt you, even if I knew our relationship wouldn’t last forever I didn’t want to lose you completely.” Chip looked back into Flint’s eyes, the first time he’d made eye contact with Flint since this conversation started. “ But I guess in the end I lost you anyways.”
Flint nodded. “ We both tried to avoid the breakup, to avoid talking about our problems, until everything became too apparent to ignore, and we fought.”
“ Our one and only fight, and it broke any semblance of friendship we had left.” Chip felt completely stricken with guilt as he looked into Flint’s eyes. He felt his guilt form a deep pit in his stomach once again before he continued. “ You know… when I saw you after we were hired, I did want to talk to you.”
“ Why didn’t you?” Flint looked genuinely surprised at this admission, curiosity overtaking the previous melancholy tone in his voice.
Chip shrank away. “ I saw you with Graham, and you looked so happy.” He crossed his arms, a mix of shame and sadness in his eyes. “ I just didn’t want to ruin it for you, I was worried that I’d show up and it’d ruin everything like before, so I stayed away.”
“ Chip…” Flint whispered, reaching out to comfort the other cog.
“ I know it was dumb, Spruce kept telling me that I shouldn’t avoid you and I should try to at least talk to you but I didn’t listen. Then all of this happened…” Chip spread his arms wide to gesture around his office, at the damaged furniture, the torn wallpaper, and the lights that had been installed on the sides of his head. “ … when you started avoiding me in return, I thought it was best to just give up on working things out between us. I wasn’t sure if I’d be strong enough to get into another fight with you.” Chip laughed through the tears that were threatening to fall down his cheeks.
“ When I saw you avoiding me I thought you still wanted space, so I did the same, I didn’t want to get into a fight with you either.” Flint explained, a somber laugh of his own escaping his mouth as he spoke, a soft look of sadness formed in his eyes. “ I want you to know, in spite of everything that's happened I don’t hold anything against you Chip, I really do care about you. After all this time I really do just want to be your friend again”
Flint’s words finally seemed to strike a chord with Chip as the tears that he’d been fighting to hold back finally began to fall down his face. He tried to say something but all that escaped were soft sobs and the occasional sudden intake of breath, as years of pent up sadness and anger were finally released. There was no override, no fear of being judged, no fear of losing his autonomy once again, there was just a feeling of closure and deep relief
The moment lasted for a couple of minutes as Flint gave Chip the moment to finally release his emotions. He wished he could have given him more time but the moment was swiftly interrupted by Flint’s phone suddenly letting out a oud ring, nearly sending Flint tumbling out his chair in complete shock as he tried to answer the call.
“ Yes! Hello Thomas, how can I help you?” Flint answered, doing his best attempt at sounding like he wasn’t just on the verge of tears himself. “ Uh huh, yep… okay… I understand, please don’t write me up.”
Flint hung up the call as Chip finally finished wiping his tears from his eyes, leaning over the table with a slightly amused look on his face as he watched Flint lay on the floor. “ Thomas needs us back?”
“ Yeah.” Flint sighed as he placed his phone on the table before he scrambled to his feet. “ I’m really sorry. I wish we had more time to work things out, as final as this feels there’s no way we can fix seven years of distance in just under an hour.” Flint dusted himself off for a moment before he extended his hand to Chip, offering to help him stand.
Chip remained in his seat for a moment, looking up at the other cog. “ You know, you’ve really changed.” Chip looked a little surprised with himself that he’d even said that out loud as he finished his sentence, as though he’d accidentally spoken what he was thinking to himself.
Flint breathed out a small laugh. “ Yeah well, you’ve changed a lot too Chip.” Flint extended his hand towards Chip, not that he’d be much help if he tried to help Chip stand while being on the other side of the table. “ If you ask me, I’d say you’ve changed for the better.” Flint gently teased, a hint of hesitation in his voice, in spite of his
Chip didn’t take Flint’s hand but he did stand from his desk, taking the teasing remark in stride. “ Well I’d say the same in return, but I’m still not sold on your taste in men.” Chip returned the remark, a sly look in his eyes as Flint rolled his.
“ Hey Graham’s a really great guy, you just don’t know him like I do.” Flint playfully crossed his arms as he defended his partner.
It was Chip’s turn to roll his eyes as he walked around his desk, as he did so sudden feeling of relief filled his chest it felt like a heavy, heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. But as Flint held the door to his office open for him he couldn’t help but hesitate. Even with the urgency to regroup with the others for the rest of the activities, there was something he couldn’t leave unsaid.
“ You okay? We can walk slower if you want, as long as the cameras see us moving we should be fine.” Flint offered, trying not to push Chip into another uncomfortable situation like he’d done before. “ I’d imagine you don’t want the others to know you were crying.”
Chip ignored Flint’s words as he took a subtle deep breath. “ I know I said this wouldn’t fix anything, but I just want to say, I’m really sorry Flint, for everything that I’ve done.” Tears once again formed in the corners of his eyes Flint looked like he was about to say something in protest but Chip stopped him. “ You’ve forgiven everything so easily while I’ve been making things worse, so please at least let me apologize.”
Flint frowned and Chip could tell he was fighting the urge to rebuke the apology. After a moment of very stilted silence Flint let out a slightly frustrated sigh. “ Fine, I’ll let you apologize, but…”
“ Flint, no just accept it and move on, please.” Chip pleaded, already knowing where this was about to go.
“ You have to accept my apology too.” Flint folded his arms as he spoke, as if to say that he knew Chip wouldn’t say no. “ I’m also really sorry Chip, I shouldn’t have avoided you like I did, and I’m sorry for the way I acted towards you both earlier today, and back when we fought.”
Chip shrank away a little, visibly uncomfortable being the one getting apologized to right after his own apology. “ Fling really, you have nothing to apologize for. You were only acting like that becau-”
“ Nope” Flint cut in, his tone eerily reminiscent of the tone of voice that Chip heard Graham speaking in quite often only with a slightly more sincere undertone to it. “ We both made mistakes so I don’t want you just blaming yourself for this.” Flint offered Chip a small smile.
Chip heaved a heavy sigh, he knew there was no arguing with Flint.
Flint lightly chuckled, which only seemed to further Chip’s mild annoyance with the situation. “ Now that we’ve both said we’re sorry, I think we can maybe try to move on. So what do ya say…?” Flint extended his hand outwards for Chip to shake. “ Can we be friends again?”
Chip sighed, a happier sigh this time. “ Yeah… that sounds nice.” He took Flint’s hand and shook it. In this situation it felt more appropriate for the two to hug, but neither of them was willing to go that far just yet. So the two walked through the doorway and into the hall together, a little bit of urgency in their step as they didn’t want to be late to the next event and have Thomas write them up for their tardiness. There was still an awkward feeling between the two and neither was quite sure what to talk about after all that had just happened, but between the two of them things felt better.
They were willing to put up with the awkward feelings and general tension if it meant they didn’t have to keep avoiding each other any more. They still had a lot to work through, but as they walked together, things looked brighter for their friendship for the first time in years.