18:00

34 : Crocodile Tears

Silence. The room was submerged in pure, sinister silence, outside of the buzzing of the lights. It was a noise, or lack of a noise, that the objects in the room knew well. But when the one person who might have a chance of starting a conversation was unconscious, it was about what you'd expect.

That was perfectly fine with Test Tube though. The quiet of the room only made it easier for her to focus on the operation. She thought that to herself as she connected the nerves, being careful to choose the right ones.

How long had it been, an hour? Half an hour, or two hours? It was hard to tell when she was too busy making sure she didn't mess something up. It could've been a short procedure if she wanted it to be, but she didn't want to risk skewing the results by connecting two wrong nerves.

The figure beneath her stirred, flinching as Test Tube tried to finish the operation.

"J-2." She said firmly, an unsaid scolding. Soap only huffed in response, long past the point of caring about what Test Tube said. "Just wait a few more minutes, I'm almost done. Then you can look away."

"That's what you said the last four times." Soap said under her breath. She stared forward, though it wasn't like she had much of a choice to look elsewhere unless she wanted to lose an eye.

"And this time I mean it. I just need to connect a couple more things, then it'll be done."

"Make that five."

This time it was Test Tube's turn to huff, annoyance floating in the exhale.

"Hey, you're the one who decided to operate on somebody without anesthetic." Soap argued. "Maybe if you cared enough to keep your little 'subjects' out of pain, I wouldn't be annoying you."

"I told you, it won't work on you." Test Tube said, though most of her focus remained on the operation. "You don't have a blood flow, neither of us do. It would just sit in the area I inject it in. Plus, you're still arguing with me, so I think the pain is bearable."

"Of course you'd know what somebody is like when they're in pain." Soap grumbled. Test Tube chose to ignore the other object's words, instead finishing the last tie.

"And... done." Test Tube said. She gingerly popped the eye she had been working on into Soap's socket. "Now, could you blink a couple times and look around for me?"

Despite her consistent attitude during the operation, Soap followed the direction, blinking her eyes a couple times. The new eye seemed to stay stable as it moved along with Soap's regular ( albeit teared-up ) eye, indicating Test Tube had connected everything correctly.

"Alright. Well, unless something comes up with Fan, you should be good to go." Test Tube hummed, taking off the blue gloves she had been wearing. Although this operation had been less messy than Bow's, there were still a couple red stains on the surgical gloves. She tossed them into the trash can across the room.

"So I can go now?"

"Once Fan wakes up, yes."

"Right, so I can't go now."

"You can, Fan just needs to wake up first."

"Right," Soap repeated, "so I can't go now."

"If you want to phrase it like that, then fine." Test Tube gave up. Arguing with the subjects wasn't worth her time anyways.

With her gloves now off, she grabbed her laptop from the counter. Now that the operation was done, she may as well update the notes. Even if she hadn't done enough data collection to know the results, she may as well say the procedure went well.