thisavrou | [audio]

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[Only the audio clicks on, and the voice coming through the MID is worn, thin with static and carefully controlled.]

This is Chief--this is Ratchet, giving notice that the portion of the inorganic clinic I was running is currently closed until further notice, as of... now, apparently somewhere around a year from when I last checked. I'll be resuming my duties as soon as--when it's possible for me to do so.

In the meantime, I'm referring my patients to the regular medbay or to Tony Stark, depending on the complexity of the engineering involved. If it's a serious emergency... I can't help you, but I'll try to consult via MID if absolutely necessary. I am not available to answer five hundred questions about why, so don't bother asking. I need to work. Kindly refrain from calling me unless you're actively leaking to death.

...Ratchet out.

[PRIVATE TO WHIRL]
I need to speak with you in person. I'm sending you my coordinates.

Please.

[Somebody's hands finally stopped working to the point where he actually has to quit using them all the time and attach new ones, and he is not having a good day. Feel free to harass him, but there's no guarantee he'll respond.]

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Those are mostly numb by now anyway. Though thankfully nobody is going to have to rip anything off anywhere today.

[He nods down and slides his hands closer to Whirl, so his forearms are in easy reach.]

Vambraces first, so you can see what you're doing. You'll have an easier time than if it was my newer set--they were socket-locked. These aren't. You just have to take the mechanisms apart to detach them.

But I was told that was the fun part!

[Whirl attempts a laugh and really it just sounds like a weird clicking mess and he gives up.]

Let's just take your word for it and literally never try this again.

[Whirl's claw flicks back and the smaller bits begin to fold out. It takes him a moment to pick up the tools and test how well he's able to hold them, but whatever he finds seems to suit him well enough. After a moment of venting and head tilting Whirl seems to decide what angle he's even approaching from, making a low irritating buzz the entire time, because of course his thinking noise has to be roughly the same as being attacked by a hoard of rampant bees.

Whirl does what he's told, using the tools to pry apart bits of plating to get at fixtures and then one set of prongs is able to pull an entire bit of it away to be able to get at the inner workings.

Once he's figured that part out, it takes him a shorter time to manage the other side.]

You know, it's a good thing you're as color coded as you are. Makes it easy to at least see what stuff really doesn't go together.

You have no idea how thrilled I am to hear that I can make dismantling me as convenient for you as possible.

[Ratchet's sarcasm is basically on automatic but there's no heat in it, none of his usual dry bite. He just sounds tired, watching Whirl pick the armor off his forearms impassively before he tilts his head.]

There, a little in past the wrist--start dismantling connections, but leave as long a lead on the wires as possible. We'll need it to hook the new ones back up.

At least you're not old helmet head. Have fun figuring out where the grey connects to the grey on the grey.

[He says this dramatically, but makes no such show of knowing that he's basically a mess of varying shades of blue. Whirl nods to show that he's listening, and his antenna flicks down as he focuses. He's still doing that irritating hum but it seems to be keeping him occupied if nothing else.]

Long aaaaaaas possible. Got it.

[Once he's gotten to the connections it becomes how obvious he's able to use the different parts of his claws independently, one holing a bit of plating, another holding a tool, and a third holding the wire he's working on. It might not be as fluid as someone with hands might accomplish, but he's clearly able to make it work to some degree. Once he's got a wire pulled free entirely he pauses.]

That about right?

[Ratchet watches closely, his own optics sharp, a desperate edge to his interest that eases a little the longer Whirl works. He can work, with the claws--he's not a surgeon, and it shows, but he's steady and slow and capable. Ratchet resists the urge to weep with relief and answers Whirl's question instead.]

Yes. [His voice is quiet, something painfully like hope flaring in his face, brief and flickering.] That's good.

[In his focus, Whirl completely misses the moment Ratchet is having, optic flickering over his work as he keeps track of each of the moving parts and tries to keep from thinking too hard about what exactly he's having to do, nodding again to get his attention across.

It takes him a while to get through the first hand. They're complicated things in the first place, and though Whirl is used to very repetitive intricate work, it's still difficult, especially because he's never done anything quite like it before. Somehow he figures that actually reattaching might be easier because at least he's used to figuring out tensions just based on instinct. It's also different to be trying to carefully dismantle someone as opposed to literally just grabbing on, pulling, and seeing what happened.

...There is a tiny part of him that pops up and wonders why he doesn't just go ahead and do so, but Whirl shoves that back where he usually puts randomly violent thoughts and figures he'll deal with that later. If he really needs to feed the impulse they have Tarn on the ship who will do nicely. There. Easy answer, glitch brain.

Moving on to the second hand took a while, and by the time he was done, Whirl's optic was narrowed and he was continuing to make buzzing sorts of clicks as he checked off each wire in his head. Ratchet would tell him if he missed any of them, and so he kept moving and waited to be told he was doing it wrong instead of stopping to worry about it too much. Stopping to think about things often lead to trouble anyway.]

.....Iiiiiiii think? That's all of those?

[Ratchet stares down at the mangled, detached remains of his hands, wishing stupidly for a medical bay full of dying patients to worry about. It had been so much easier on Delphi--he'd helped Ambulon prep and dismantle one hand as much as he could while First Aid cooked more antidote, and had dismissed Ambulon entirely for the second once the first was in place to have him free to take care of patients while Ratchet stripped and replaced his other hand himself. But it had happened in a flurry of pain and fear, the tang of rust sharp in his throat and the whole of him stretched thin, entirely too aware of the ill around him that needed care, of Drift and Pipes, barely hanging on, of the repairs that would have to be made once the antidote had been administered. It had helped that he had been laboring to attach hands that actually worked.

[This process, having to sit and wait while Whirl works at an excruciating snail's pace to pull away--again--the hands he'd used for five million years to keep as many people he cared about alive as possible, only to replace them with... well. He doesn't begrudge Whirl his slowness, and he's grateful beyond measure to have something to replace the useless, twisted chunks of metal on the ends of his wrists with in the first place, but none of that makes this any easier. Ratchet shoves those thoughts aside and bends every last piece of his will to the task of trying to twitch his fingers. Nothing.]

That's all of them. The hard part of this half's over, it's just the rest of the hardware now. Start with the bolts at the sides of my wrist and work in.

Oh. Good. Cause I kinda wanted to tear my optic out.

[He doesn't really, but it's just the closest he can kinda get to saying that he sort of wants to shoot everything and can't at the moment. Close enough.]

Okay. Bolts.

[As he trades out tools he repeats the word 'bolts' over and over again until he gets back to work. This is where things become a little awkward to watch, because he has to occasionally reset the prongs hold on the tool and that part of things is clearly irritating to him. Rotating motions are a little interesting to replicate.He makes a set of very irritated clicks every time he can't quite get it, but the longer he works he gets into the rhythm of it. It's not at all fast, but at least he's able to unhook them at a speed that doesn't make him want to die inside. As he's worked his wings have slowly settled forward, and as they officially seem to get in his light he glares at them, sets his shoulder back, and continues. ]

I used to be so much better at this 'patience' thing.

[He says this as if it's a very obvious fact, and then proceeds to go back to work.]

Attaching the new ones isn't going to be a party, but you won't have to worry about which connections go where--I'll tell you.

[As he grows more comfortable, he leans back and watches the whole of Whirl rather than just his claws--the restless shift of his plating, the constant noise, the steady speed of his pace as he settles into the work. Ratchet's voice is almost soft when he finally speaks again.]

You're doing fine.

Attaching the new ones will probably make more sense.

[At least that will be kind of like fixing something, and that's what he used to be good at, so he wont have nagging thoughts in the back of his head making it worse. He turns over one claw, pulling back in all of the smaller prongs and turning it sideways in it's well so he can use it to hold the hand in place as he works, because the more detached it is the more it moves and the harder it is for him to work. ]

Yeah, no, I'm fine. I've got this. I'm good. I don't know what I'm doing but that's not really the point, I don't really have to know what I'm doing here to make it work so that's okay. I mean it's not like I'm doing literal surgery or anything, and hey, at least there's not a spark or all of time and cybertron at stake so, this is not the hardest thing I've been stuck having to do lately-

[Whirl breaks off into something kind of like laughing, has officially hit babbling point, so he stops, offlines his optic, vents until that clicking sound starts again, and keeps going.

He's fucntional, give him credit.]

You're right. I'm fine, anything that happens here can be fixed if necessary, and I'm not in a rush. You're doing good work.

[He doesn't reach out and touch Whirl, or try to get him to stop, or otherwise interrupt him--he just speaks in a low, even tone, his optics sharp on Whirl's.]

It's not a race. Take a minute if you want.

[Whirl does pause, and vents before speaking. He's not putting a large amount of work into inflection at the moment, and he doesn't look up from where he's working.]

If I stop, I'm probably not going to finish so lets not. Kay.

[That is probably the closest admission Ratchet's getting to exactly how hard a time he's having, so he'd better take it.

And with that, Whirl gets back to unhooking the bolts. He's almost done with the one hand so that's something.]

Fair enough.

[Ratchet shudders as Whirl works the last of the pins holding his hand on his wrist free and he shifts back, his tanks rolling as he watches his hand, stationary on the table, slide away from his wrist, wires trailing. He swallows hard and shutters his optics, his mouth set in a thin line.]

Nearly half done.

[Once the bolts are out he has to be careful not to frag anything up from here, pulling bits out of the way so that it's actually loose of the arm, instead of vaguely attached somewhere. All he knows is he'd rather not mess this stage up because if he does and ends up with energon everywhere then honestly he might end up purging his tanks, ability to or no, and then they'd have to call for assistance and as hilarious as that would be....No thank you.

Whirl pauses once the first one is off, and actually stops for a moment to shake his helm before very carefully picking up the hand, and moving it on the other side of the box where Whirl can very clearly not see it thanks to his questionable peripheral vision. Unlike with the claw before, there is absolutely no use of it as a pointer.

He goes to speak, his vocalizer clicks instead, and he rolls his entire helm at himself before pinching his claw in the air. ]

Other arm. Gimmie.

[Ratchet watches Whirl closely for a moment, his optics sharp and focused, but he doesn't say anything as he shifts his other arm closer to Whirl on the tabletop. He tucks his other arm under it so neither of them has to look at the bare stump where his hand should be, his ventilations soft and shallow and his optics pale as he watches Whirl ease the last of the parts connecting his hand to his wrist away.]

[Whirl goes back to his odd little buzzing hum as he works, because the second hand is once again easier than the first, and he once again uses the flat of his claw to hold the hand in place while he works.

He is not about to admit that he is actually sort of grateful that Ratchet went and moved the stump away because it really shouldn't bother him. It really shouldn't. It shouldn't.

Once he's got the other hand disconnected he takes the same sort of care unhooking the wires from the hardware so they don't catch. If he's going to do this, he's going to do it right. That's really the only way he is able to keep going, because there's no point in leaving something undone. Then it will just bother him.

Whirl moves the other hand with the same sort of speed out of the way so he once again can't see it. +1 to problematic depth perception.]

Okay, so, I'm betting the answer is hooking multiple things together instead of clipping anything?

[Whirl attempts to sound fairly unconcerned and it's passable only because of the utter lack of expression.]

[Ratchet feels the weight of his other hand leave the end of his wrist and he pulls that one away too, tucking it under the desk and leaning hard on his knees.]

Yeah. Yeah, just--

[He clenches his jaw so hard he can feel the helpless clicking of a gear trying to strip as he swallows hard against another swamping wave of disoriented nausea, curling in tighter. His optics flicker wildly before he shutters them and hunches over, the flat plate at the center of his chevron pressed to the top of the desk and a vicious, rattling shiver working slowly down his back.

[It's a long moment before he stills and he has no idea what sort of expression is on his face as he sits up but he shifts again, laying both his wrists back on the table and staring down at the bare, unpainted mechanisms in his forearms, the wires trailing limp and haphazard from the ends of his wrists.]

Yes. [His voice his horribly steady.] I'll tell you which leads go where. Connect them back up first before you lock them into place--it'll give you more room to work and I can test before everything's settled back where it should be.

Edited 2016-09-22 00:49 (UTC)

[Whirl, for once, doesn't say anything.

He's not exactly sure what he would say and about 90% sure that whatever it was would make things worse and despite what most people think he doesn't always want to be the biggest aft in the room.

Only most of the time.

Whirl waits through Ratchet's moment, tapping his claws on the desk not out of any need to speed him up but more out of the need to keep moving so he doesn't lock up. This, however, does not stop him from looking around a little as if Rung or Tailgate or someone will magically appear to be more useful, because this is very much not his forte. He vents in a very long steady stream when Ratchet finally sits up, and immediately the tapping becomes clacking with the free claw as he goes to pick up one of the ones off the table. He's able to arrange it well enough, though it takes both sets of claws to do it reasonably. The full claw is a little heavy for his pinchers.]

Oooookay. These are kinda like my old ones. Heavy. At least there's three points. So, less breaking everything you touch at the start. First week with these I shattered every glass I picked up.

[He flicks his up and down in their wells, as if to helpfully prove a point, and then he goes back to releveling each tool into the place he'd started with them in while he waits for Ratchet to tell him what to do. ]

Edited 2016-09-22 01:06 (UTC)

Yeah. They date back to before the war I guess, technically. I might build a couple of points of articulation into each claw, too--the plating segments are already there.

[Talking seems to steady him, at least a little, and his optics look a little less pale as he cycles his vents shakily.]

Go on, pick up one of the leads and I'll tell you when you're in the right spot with it. I can't exactly point yet--the second one should go a bit faster.

They'll be decent for hitting something. If you need to hit something.

[Whirl seems to think this is a plus. His old claws were great for bashing, and these have a similar build. He basically used to be able to smash through low quality plating in about two hits if he was angry enough at the time. He flicks back out the pinchers and they expand out ridiculously before picking up one lone wire.]

Let's get this party started.

Yeah. ...yeah.

[He walks Whirl through reconnecting the tiny glittering nerves to the base of his new wrist, his optics paling and the lines around his mouth carved deep. It hurts, necessarily, circuits completing to send shuddering waves of renewed sensation back down along his arm even with the sensitivity turned as far down as he can manage, but at least he can tell it's working and he doesn't let the pain show on his face.]

You're doing fine.

[Whirl basically hums his way through working, and is quiet, for him. He seems much more sure of this part. There's less ugly weird thoughts nagging at the back of his brain module and this part is at least something more like he's used to if nothing else. Hook in place, tighten down, not too tight or you frag the tension and you have to unhook things and start again. Occasionally he stops and just sort of holds his claws in mid air for a moment before figuring out what ever angle works best to not cause more problems during the hook up.]

Whatever you say, Doc. Iiiiii.....think that's right?

[Whirl tips his helm and then actually looks at Ratchet. His own optic is painfully bright and his wings are high and tense, but he's in a rhythm that makes sense to him at the moment.]

If we're finishing this side first then I think we're good to test if these are gonna work at all.

[Ratchet drags in a soft, shivering vent of cool air, swallows, then tries to move. The claws twitch slightly and he looks startled, then narrows his optics and tries the movement again. It's smoother this time, all of them shifting together, then one at a time in a slow rippling motion as Ratchet gets the hang of it.]

Nice work. [He sounds more like himself than he has in weeks, his optics suddenly sharp and bright.] Lock it in.

[Whirl watches like he's almost expecting for something to blow up instead of move, and then looks wonderfully surprised when it works, optic huge and antenna flicked forward. He vents until it becomes a buzz again, because frag, that was stressful, and then picks up a tool to be able to bolt things back into place.]

Oh good. Moving's good. Okay. ....Still gonna be careful handing you anything yet.

Just...trust me. On that.

[Whirl might generally like raining on parades, but in this case he's just being practical. If there's anyone that knows how many things you can accidentally break with new claws, it's him.

And on that note, he stats bolting. Once again, this means pulling in one set of pinchers and using the flat of the claw to hold things in place.]

Noted. I'll start with things I don't mind breaking.

[Ratchet shivers all over when Whirl screws the last piece into place and he draws his arm away from the table hesitantly. It holds, of course it does, and he spins it slowly, letting it rotate smoothly in its socket as he manipulates the individual claws before he shuts them with a sharp snap.]

I'll test sensation later and make adjustments when I can, but this is solid. The next one should be easier, I can actually help a bit instead of just telling you what goes where. Here. [He starts pointing to wires with one carefully extended claw, showing Whirl where the proper circuits complete. His head is bent over his own wrist but all the taut, aching tension is drained from him now, leaving him wrung out to a sort of desperate, flensing intensity without urgency, still not rushing Whirl despite his agitation.]

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