Tending to the Comatose Patient

"I don't see why that sad butler doesn't already do this for you." J pulled a feather duster out of her apron pocket and started brushing off the workers shoulders and skirt. "I mean, sure he's like super awkward or whatever, but you'd think that since he's so obsessed with you he'd think to at least keep you presentable."

As J finished cleaning off the barely noticeable dust that had accumulated on the worker she stepped back with a frown, the eerie silence of the library thickening into something more uncomfortable as she stared into the blinking error 606 message on the workers visor. She made a noise like someone clearing their throat before swiftly snatching the glasses off of the workers visor. "Your glasses are dirty." J mumbled, cleaning the lenses with her apron. Once satisficed with her job she held them up in front of her own visor and squinted through them, blinking a few times as the prescription unnecessary to her blurred her vision. "Do you even need to wear these, or is Tessa just using them to dress you up? If you do need them, then that doesn't make sense. We're drones, we shouldn't have vision problems, and if we did then couldn't that just be fixed?" J fell into silence again. She looked between the glasses and the worker in front of her before shrugging and carefully placing them back on her face. "Whatever, they look cute on you I guess."

J looked down at the drawings N discarded into a pile when he was done using them as bookmarks. J had made a habit of finding the book N was reading and adding her own drawing to his scrap paper, usually a sketch of herself with an insult scribbled next to it. She'd do this when coming into the library to check on V. J would would dust her off before grabbing the book with the drawing in it and sitting at the table by the window on the other side of the isle, pretending she was in there to read or bully N and not to check on a drone that was current offline with an error.

J rolled her eyes and looked up from the pile of, in her eyes, trash as she grabbed the brush from her pocket and stepped around V to stand behind her. She started brushing her short hair, being careful not to disturb the lacey headband of her uniform. "Tessa says there's a part or something tonight. Some ball or banquet or something. She thinks she's going to meet some cute boy. I think its just going to be a bunch of snooty adults talking about business and social status." J kept running the brush through V's hair, there weren't any knots, not this time or the last number of times she had done this.

There was a few more minutes of silence and mindless brushing. J sighed softly as she put the brush back in her pocket and started playing with V's hair. Weaving little braids into and brushing them back out with her fingers. "Even more of the other workers are going offline with this 606 error, but I'm sure the company is developing some sort of patch for us to upload and fix the error. Otherwise they would have thrown out all the drones that are offline, right?" J continued running her fingers through V's bob, she felt ridiculous for doing this. J though this was childish, it felt like maintaining a doll, it felt like she was insulting V somehow. Though at the same time there was an odd comfort in spending this time with the drone before her, even if she was essentially unconscious and most likely couldn't hear anything she was saying. "If they do try get rid of everyone, I'll find somewhere to hide you. I'm sure Tessa would help me try to fix you."

"Except everything's fine, and when you wake up you're not allowed to tell anyone how nice I've been to you!" J's hands stilled in V's hair for a moment before she took the brush out and started detangling any knots she made while messing with it. "Assuming you can even hear anything in this condition." J put the brush back again and stepped away from V, towards one of the bookshelves and pretending to inspect the books.

"I used to not understand why Tessa would do this sort of stuff. Sit me down and play with my hair, brushing and styling it over and over while talking at me." She grabbed a random book and and skimmed through the description, some small tow romance novel or something, boring. J rolled her eyes and put it back. "But I guess I can understand it now. She finds comfort in it." She dramatically flipped a pigtail over her shoulder and turned back to face towards V.

"V, I..." She what? Missed her? That was true, but could she really say that out loud? No, weather V was listening or not, she couldn't. Not yet at least. "Just come back soon, or whatever. I'm tired of hearing N worry over you."

J decided it was time to leave now, Tessa was probably looking for her by now. Partially spinning in place, she turned towards the cross section of the libraries isles and began making her way back out of the too quiet room. She threw one last glance back over her shoulder before rounding the corner to leave, just checking once last time in hopes V would reboot. She sighed in disappointment as she left the library, disappointment towards herself, oh how stupid she felt for hoping this error code thing would get fixed soon, if ever.