"Ok....so you have to stop if it hurts, you got that mate?" Audley murmured, somewhat distracted by the scrolling reams of code he was still tinkering with even now, mere seconds before the upload was to begin.
His eyes narrowed for a moment, honing in on a particularly ugly looking chunk that immediately he began to tweak, shoulder rising on a shrug when he was once again content. Still wasn't all that beautiful, but J2 was evolving as he went along now, so anything less than stellar would be smoothed out in a day or two anyway. That, he supposed, was the beauty of an artificial intelligence this advanced, he did a lot of his own legwork!
Absently, he became aware of the little hand clasping at his own and glanced up, meeting the flat, pearly blink of J2's eyes with a smile, "We don't have to do this you know..."
"I want the upgrade." J2 nodded with a solemn firmness that reminded Audley rather strongly of Harry for a moment, another mind so far beyond those around it that sometimes he struggled with things too. Bit of luck, Harry and J2 could help eachother out on that one at least.
"It stops if you feel ANY pain though, and that's final." Audley's free hand rose, paternal without even really knowing he was doing it as he gestured between the laptop and his finest creation, "It's no good hurting yourself to learn things J, you'd reach this upgrade on your own in no time anyway, I won't have you causing yourself pain."
Across from him, the little head tilted in the way that Audley had come to learn was an electronic frown of deep seated curiousity, the image of it bringing a smile to his lips before he even noticed he was doing it.
"What is pain?"
And there the smile fell again, his hand closing on the soft, sensor filled digits in his palm, "Something you won't ever feel if I have anything to do with it and this upgrade is not happening while there's a chance it'll hurt..."
He didn't even finish the words before the little hand had escaped his own and hit the send button, the upload beginning with a speed that made even Audley blink. Apparently he'd not been kidding about wanting the upgrade then?! J2's hungry mind was sucking up the new code like dinner was late after a long day and all the while, teal tinged little feet swung against the edge of the workbench in the very picture of innocence.
"...you..." he finished, sighing at what would undoubtedly have been a SMUG face, had J2 managed to teach himself facial expression.
"It tickles!" J2 announced, curious fingers already fiddling with the USB plugged directly into his mainframe.
"Of course it does, you're just uploading a weeks worth of coding work, what else would it feel like..." Audley muttered with a huff of laughter, sliding back onto his high stool and dragging a hand over his weary face. Sometimes, apparently, you just have to let the kids make their own mistakes!
Audley is a heavily modded Souldoll Ize, J2 is a heavily modded Ringdoll Dylan.