robothell | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Tarn and Spinister
What: life is bad
When: sometime
Where: The wastes
Warnings: none

The wind howls through the skeleton of their meager shelter, bringing with it thick clouds of soot. Unfortunately, dust storms were more frequent out here in the middle of nowhere than Tarn had hoped. The vast expanse of the wastes left little to prevent the cloud from building on itself.

As it stands, the state of their dwelling is… unsustainable to say the very least. Tarn has begun to lose count of the amount of times that he’s woken up from recharge and had to chase after supplies that had been caught in the wind. However, shelters in the wastes are far and few between, and he finds himself hesitant to move further away from the city and its supplies. His occasional sneaking trips into the city outskirts have yielded just enough to make the risk work it.

Tarn pulls a tarp tighter around his body in a futile attempt to keep his vents from clogging. in truth its more for show than anything; his entire frame, from the top of his head to his feet, is covered in a thick layer of sand and dirt. He can do little but wait for the storm to pass and wait for Spinister’s return in hopes that he has been able to dig up something of use.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gritting his teeth, Tarn forces his armor to relax and open to Spinister's digging fingers. As uncomfortable and invasive as this venture may feel, Tarn really does what whatever is stuck in there out.

He flinches again as the object shifts, constricting a cluster of wires and sending a sharp shooting pain down the length of his arm.

Tarn tightens his jaw, biting down a hiss. Perhaps if he flexes his shoulder just right, it might help to shift the foreign body within Spinister's reach.

"Is that helping?" Tarn quizzes in a quiet baritone over his shoulder. Honestly, he's not sure how else to assist.

"Nope NOPE," Spin yelps as his fingers are squished together to the point of pain. "THAT WAS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I SAID TO DO. TARNNN!"

Tarn immediately freezes as Spinister begins shrieking at him. He drops his shoulder completely, loosening the joint as much as possible in hopes that Spinister will be able to pull his fingers free.

The last thing he needs is a furious heli stuck in his shoulder.

"UGH! Ow, holy heck," Spin takes a moment to wince as the residual pain fades away to something more manageable.

Then, without waiting to see if Tarn was ready or not, he shoves the fingers in knuckle-deep, pinches down on the damn whatsit and then pulls back, twisting carefully so that it didn't cut any delicate cabling. It takes a couple tries, some more twisting, and Spin somehow ends up with a knee swung over Tarn's opposite shoulder, but it finally comes comes loose.

"Hah!" he crows victoriously, planting his free hand on top of Tarn's helm as he sits up, holding up a dripping shard of shrapnel. "Look at that! How'd it even get in there?"

Tarn squawks indignantly as Spinister roots around even more aggressively. Its a struggle not to clamp down again on the invading fingers, but he manages to keep himself under control. His optics are wide with shock as Spinister slings a leg over his shoulder and begins yanking snd twisting whatever is lodged in there.

Finally, he feels it slide loose and breathes an audible sigh of relief. Tarn turns to look up the culprit. Shrapnel?

“I…I’m not entirely sure."

How long had that been in there? He tries to recall an instance that would have led to a shard of that size striking him. The only thing he can think of is perhaps his fight with Megatron. Senior.

Months ago.

Tarn holds hand out in a silent bid to inspect the shard of shrapnel

"It's been in there long enough to get a nasty crust of repair nanites and gunk," Spinister says, dropping the shard into Tarn's palm. If he wanted in on the gross gunk action, then Spin was happy to share.

"Any residual pain?" he asks, sliding his fingers back in and smoothing over the mechanisms there. He's still not gotten off his perch on Tarn's shoulders, but Tarn can bloody deal with it until he's sure there's no damage.

"It's fine." Tarn's voice is clipped and terse as he tries to shoulder Spinister off of his perch. "Now, if y-- would kindly relinquish your hold on me, I would be grateful."

To be honest, Tarn thinks that it's to be expected that the site is a bit sore. After all, repair nanites and and scar tissue had basically begun to heal around the foreign object.

Tarn inspects the metal shard, switching it to his other hand and swiping sludge from the smooth object with his fingertips. Cleaning it up lends no more information to where it came from. It's still a mystery, and to be honest, he supposes it doesn't truly matter. Absentmindedly he flicks congealed energon from his fingertips, looking at Spinister expectantly.

Get off of his shoulder you imbecile.

"I am doing- a damage assessment!"

And honestly, all Tarn's shouldering does is make Spin clamp his thigh and elbow down with his neck as an anchor. Sorry, mate.

"Just because it's out doesn't mean it's done cutting things up, now leave me be for a flippin' second!"

"Hk---! Spin--!" Tarn wheezes as Spinister clings to his neck and shoulder, putting more than a little pressure across his throat with an elbow. It certainly is enough to get Tarn to stop pushing at him.

He sits slumped and defeated, optics glaring hotly at the ground in front of him. After a few minutes of patiently waiting, Tarn speaks up, irritation ringing clearly in his voice.

"Are you quite done?"

"Okay, yeah, now I'm done," Spin grumbles once he's satisfied, gingerly pulling his hand away and dramatically rolling off of Tarn's shoulders.

"Add 'syringe' to the list of things I need," the heli adds conversationally, sitting up and spinning his rotor once to get the dust off before reaching for a cloth from the bucket again.

"Oh? What for? If there's an infection in there, I'm entitled to know."

Of course Tarn immediately zeros in on casual syringe mention. He turns to stare directly at Spinister as he's released from the heli's grip, large purple hand reaching up to rub his throat. Tarn waits expectantly for an explanation, daring him to skirt around the topic.

"If there's an infection there, you'll know whether you want to or not. It's not an infection, so you're fine." As he talks, Spinister wipes the black streaks of fluids off of Tarn's back before starting where he'd left off.

"It needs some cleaning though. The crust was pretty thick and chunky," and very gross. He makes a bit of a face as he hits the small of his companion's back.

"Priority-wise, it's definitely under keeping your knee and neck in good shape."

Well that's good news at least. Setting the shard aside for future disposal, Tarn visibly relaxes as he retrieves his discarded rag from the bucket of cleaner. giving his shoulder an experimental stretch, Tarn notes that the rotation of the joint and flex of cables is noticeably smoother.

"I'm not sure that I would have noticed that something was in there if not for your assistance. Thank you."

That's all the thanks Spinister will be getting.

Tarn settles quietly into cleaning out his hip joints, dipping the cloth between armor plates and swiping away weeks of built up dirt and thick black grease. Disgusting. How could he have let his frame fall into such deplorable condition? He needs to at least be giving himself a daily brush down to rid his frame and major joints of dirt. Tarn doesn't even need a proper cleanser, just a bit of water to sluice of with.

How can Tarn possibly expect Galvatron to be proud to call him his Lieutenant if he can't even preform the most basic frame upkeep.

"Uh-huh."

Aaaand that's all the acknowledgement Tarn's thanks gets. Honestly, Spinister would win just about all of the rudeness contests and he doesn't even have to try.

Or even be aware that he was in any kind of contest, but that's besides the point.

Speaking of rude, the heli is now moving down to scrub Tarn's butt.

Tarn startles as Spinister begins scrubbing at his aft. His hand snaps behind him, locking the hell’s wrist in his firm grip and instantly stilling him from his ministrations.

“I’m fully capable of doing that myself—!“ His exasperation is palpable as he tries to scoot away slightly. “You’ve been plenty helpful, I’m sure that I can finish up here on my own.”

Don’t think you’re getting away so easy either, Spinister. Tarn fully intends on repaying the favor. After all, you’ve just walked through a dust storm, and mutual grooming and detailing are the building blocks of trust in any partnership.

Spinister squawks when he's grabbed.

"Ack! That's my wrist!"

In retaliation, he promptly throws the rag at Tarn's head and starts trying to squirm out of the hold.

"Let me go!"

If Tarn thought his partner was about to accept mutual grooming with any manner of grace, he's in for a rude awakening!

Uninterested in a fight, Tarn releases Spinister. With an air of disdain, he peels the wet rag away from where it landed, partially draped over the chevron of his mask, glaring over his shoulder as he stands to get at the backs of his thighs.

“Oh, don’t be so theatrical, you act like I was trying to rip your arm off. “ He quickly finishes up his bath, working down his legs, hips and aft, paying special attention to the cleanliness of his crippled knee. Bes to keep the injury as clean as possible; a rust infection is the last thing he needs right now.

Satisfied with the state of his frame for the first time since his exile, Tarn lets out a sigh of contentment. But, of course there is still work to be done

Tarn doesn’t even turn around as he crooks a finger at Spinister, beckoning him closer.

“A moment of your time, if you will.”

"Oooh my god, do you even remember your own reputation you dingus?" Spin asks fussing over the wrist Tarn had touched like it'd been irreversibly damaged.

Admittedly, the heli didn't really care about Tarn's reputation, he just hated having his hand-areas touched without his consent and especially so roughly. He likes his hands, goddamnit!

Spinister comes out of his offended wrist rubbing in time to see Tarn beckoning him over.

He doesn't come over.

He doesn't give Tarn a moment of his time.

He does, however, glare impotently.

"Of course, but I had thought that we had a bit more of a rapport than to get hung up on the most base presumption as a reputation."

Tarn doesn't deign to chase after the heli down. But, he does turn to stare very levely at him, ingnorning Spinister's poisonous glare.

"Surely you don't think after all this time together, that I would harm you when you have in fact done nothing wrong."

Dunking his rag in the bucket of solvent, he gives it a thorough rinse before ringing out the excess moisture.

"Now, I insist." He repeats, gesturing for Spinister to have a seat next to him by the fire. "Certainly you don't want to continue flouncing around covered in dirt from the storm, after going through so much trouble to keep the sand from our living space."

The glaring continues on for a another few seconds before Spin finally puffs air out of his vents.

Alright. Yes. It is, in fact, a good idea to get dust off of himself after they had, indeed, spent so much effort taking measures to keep it out.

He still doesn't like Tarn's condescension though.

"Don't touch my hands," he warns, grabbing a rag from the bucket and settling down next to Tarn.

Tarn knows that he’s won when Spinister doesn’t immediately shoot back a rebuttal. He tries not to seem to smug about it. Instead, he simply scoots over to allow the heli more space by the fire.

“As you wish.”

Tarn wastes no time in picking up the brush and sweeping at the thin coating of dirt covering Spinister’s shoulders, quickly working to his upper back and around the mechanisms holding his rotor blades in place.

"Don't try anything funny!" Spin snaps.

You know, because he can stop Tarn if the guy actually did try anything. Even injured and wounded, his house-mate was still very capable of crushing a genericon like Spinister if he just put his mind to it.

... Best not to think about it.

Flicking his rotor at the feel of a brush being worked against his armor, the smaller Decepticon gets to work, wiping the dust off his face with a puff of air.

Tarn snorts but otherwise ignores the snap comment. It's almost hard to tell that Spinister had showered at all while he was having dalliances with Brainstorm. He shudders, thinking of what the state of his armor would be if he hadn't.

He makes quick, efficient, work with the brush, working from the rotor mechanism to his back struts, sweeping off cloud after cloud of dust. Once satisfied, he reaches for his rag, running it across his shoulders and dipping it into the back of the heli's collar assembly to scrub at a bit of caked on grime.

"You'll tell me if anything that I'm doing is bothering you." It's not a request.

"If you do something that bothers me, you're not going to hear the end of it for a month," Spinister grumbles back as he tilts his head in order to make it easier for Tarn to reach the mechanisms around his neck.

He probably had ruder things to say to Tarn, but the scrubbing makes his optics slowly dim. The rag hangs listlessly in his hand after a minute and Spin looks like he might just fall asleep.

This was... kind of nice.

He kind of missed this.

Tarn dips the rag deeper as Spinister tilts his head, working on a spot as far down as his thick fingers can reach.

Spinister falls strangely silent and for a moment Tarn thinks that perhaps he's already done something wrong. But, judging by the way the rag hangs in his limp hand, he rather thinks that it's the opposite

This is preferable. At least he's stopped grumbling and decided to be agreeable for once.

Tarn catches himself wondering where else could clean that would keep the heli in such a state of sleepy bliss.

(no subject)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

should we head for wrap soon?

sounds good to me!