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

Tarn stares very levely at Spinister for a few moments before taking the brush thrust in his face.

"Come now, no need to be so rude." He rumbles with only a touch of disdain. He's not an idiot; how was he supposed to know that Spinister brought the rags with him to clean? The last he saw of them was that morning when they were piled in the corner.

Still, he's glad that the heli had thought to wash them today when he went out.

The cleanser is blessedly warm as Tarn fishes out a rag, running it down the length of his arm. He sighs in barely contained bliss. Something so simple has no right feeling this nice. Suddenly he can't wait to be clean and not covered in this wretched dust; to be a presentable mech again. But, even so, he wants to enjoy the warmth of the cleanser as he wipes down his plating, scrubbing at tough stains with the brush.

Rather than answering that, Spinister makes a rude face at Tarn. He'll be as rude as he wants to be, just you watch him.

He grabs one of the soaked rags and starts on the back of the DJD commander's helm. It made sense to start from the top most part and work down so that the dust followed the cleanser instead of getting everywhere.

This was probably edging into the sort of weirdly intimate area of things but Spinister was bound and determined to just keep powering through it. Tarn was going to be CLEAN.

Tarn watches Spinister critically from the corner of his eye. He really should not allow that attitude to stand, it’s just promoting insolence. But, he just can’t bring himself to fuss over it at the moment and finds himself slowly relaxing into the warmth of the cloth as it wipes at the back of his helm.

He sets to work purposefully scrubbing under his chin and around his jaw, careful around the welds covering his throat. It still stings when the cloth dabs gently over the healing wound, although he acknowledges that it may be slightly psychosomatic.

Tarn knows what needs to come net. His face is filthy under his mask, catching and keeping dust in its confines. Everything desperately needs to be washed, including the inside of the mask itself.

“Turn away, Spinister, i require a bit of privacy for a few moments. “

Tarn doesn’t wait for a response before his fingers reach up to the clasps, watching for Spinister to turn his back.

No amount of stomping down on the attitude was going to stop Spin from sassing Tarn. It's just something Tarn will have to live with now.

"Oh, what, and miss out on the face that fanboys keep swooning just speculating over?" Still, Spinister has the grace to turn away, taking the pause to go grab a container to put the soiled rags in.

"How's your throat feeling anyhow?" he quizzes over his shoulder. He'd seen the way Tarn had gingerly touched over the wound.

The minute that Spinister turns away, Tarn eases the mask away from his face, setting it aside. Fresh air feels strange against the delicate plating as he begins to brush the sand from his cheeks and forehead. He scoffs softly at Spinisters statement. It's true, however. More times than he can count, List Offenders were pawing at his mask, trying to peel it off to sneak a look at the face underneath.

"Don't worry, Spinister, you aren't missing much." Tarn rumbles, running the clean cloth over the vast, creeping scar covering the right side of his face, encompassing the plating around his optic.

It feels wonderful to finally clean away weeks of dirt, grime, and dried energon left from his fight with Megatron. Tarn finds his spirits lifting the slightest bit, feeling marginally less like a mangy animal and more like his old self.

"It still stings. I'd l--like you to take a look at it later to make sure it's healing properly."

"But Taaarnnn," Spinister whines in the most obnoxiously pitiable tone of voice he could manage. "I have bets I could win!" Not that Misfire ever paid up his bets (or even had anything Spin wanted to begin with), but it what mattered was winning.

He still doesn't turn around to look despite the whinging.

"You need to stop using it above normal volume," Spinister says once Tarn was done describing his symptoms, wiping the grime off of his hands. "If you have to shout, you grab my hand and we can argue in chirolinguistics."

He walks backwards with the container of dirty rags, coming to sit behind Tarn once again, his optics firmly in front of him.

"What about your knee?"

Spinister has been placing bets on his face? Tarn takes a moment to be outraged; what does he expect to be under there?

He gives his entire face, chin, and jaw a few vigorous scrubs with the cloth before picking up the discarded mask and working at the dried energon coating the inside of it.

“I wouldn’t ha-- have to shout if you were just upfront with me in the first place.” Tarn growls over his shoulder. Chronolingustics seems far too intimate for their already strangely close relationship.

Tarn jerks slightly as he feels Spinister’s armor brush his back, cautiously turning his head ever so slightly to ensure that the heli still has his back turned. Satisfied, he continues to work the cloth over the front of his mask, taking care to clean buildup from its various cracks and scratches.

“My knee is fine. It has some numb spots and moments of weakness where it doesn’t want to bear weight, b-- otherwise it seems to be healing.”

Knowing Spinister, he was probably expecting ridiculously huge buckteeth, a butt chin and dimples or something. He's drawn it out and argued a lot with Misfire about it. Sometimes there was punching.

"Oh, what, like how you were upfront with me about the Megatrons?"

Touchy much?

"I'm still going to take a look at it once we're done getting you scrubbed down," he sighs, inspecting his hands for any grime to wipe off. "Might have to make you a brace just to make sure everything is healing up proper since I can't exactly fabricate you anything new with the stuff we have."

UGH, really Spinister? That was months ago.

“I’ve already said my peace about the incident with Megatron. Besides, thi— arrangement has grown exponentially since that point. You were merely an ally then. Now you are a partner.” As if that is supposed to make him feel better.

Satisfied with the cleanliness of his face and mask he eases the jagged metal back into place, securing it with a quiet click.

Although still far from healed, the state of both his throat and knee are better than he could have hoped. Spinister did an excellent job with the repairs considering what he had to work with. Seeing as Tarn ruined his last brace within an hour of receiving it, he is grateful that Spinister is willing to give it another try.

“As you wish. I’ll try my best to keep this one intact for its duration.”

You should know by now that Spinister's grudges were rare but long lasting! Which is why Tarn gets an even ruder face in response and it was a good thing that fragger's back was turned.

"Look, I can weld a brace back together million times but if the brace keeps breaking then your knee is going to wear itself down to the point where we would need fabrication and then we're right and properly screwed." Spin rubs his chevron with a loud sigh before turning and getting up, pulling another clean cloth from the bucket so that he could keep working down Tarn's back.

"So just... easy on the pissing people off thing for a while? And any rough sex. And no transforming until the damn thing is at least seventy percent healed up."

Tarn scoffs quietly at Spinister’s suggestions.

“I will…try.” He makes no promises, but Tarn will make an honest effort to keep his helm out of frivolous fights... and other excesses. Although, the transforming bit might give him more trouble than he cares to admit. With nothing else to take his mind from the asperity of the situation, Tarn needs to transform. However, he also needes to remain mobile.

Wringing his cloth out, Tarn continues his way down his chassis, paying extra attention to the brand gifted to him by Galvaton.

“Still, I worry that another run in with that enigmatic Beastformer will leave me with more to worry about than a broken knee.” Loathe as he is to admit it, Tarn’s latest run-in with Rampage has left him more than a little anxious.

Spinister resists the urge to roll his optics at the special attention Tarn pays to his new badge. Ugh. Ugh! Shaking his head, the heli moves his attention to his companion's threads. The threads themselves were a rather pointless affair, but the mechanisms that moved them needed to be maintained.

"So are going to do the buddy system now?"

Oh boy does he not want to spend any more of his waking hours around Tarn. Tarn probably felt the same but to heck with Tarn's feelings. If the asshole wasn't constantly making enemies with people, this would be less of a goddamn problem.

“I’m afraid so.” Tarn sighs, hating the idea of giving up his last shred of privacy. There goes his nice, solitary, quiet, walks to clear his head.

The stress is short lived, however, as Spinister begins cleaning the mechanisms around his treads. The warmth of the cleanser in his structure has Tarn's shoulders slumping in barely contained bliss. His optics dim and his hand stills in cleaning the darkened and broken biolights lining his abdominal plating. It’s been ages since he’s been able to get back there and clean that deeply.

The pause lasts only for a few seconds before he forces his hand back into motion, swiping the cloth across his abdomen and moving back up to to get the cables under his arm

“You haven’t had any trouble out here have you?” Tarn is only slightly worried about Spinister being targeted, but guilty by association is always a risk for someone in his position.

"Nope!"

Unlike some people, Spin hasn't managed to piss off a small city and get exiled. He's just tagging along out of contractual obligation. A lot of people probably didn't even know Spinister existed for the most part.

There's an air of something like smugness about Spin at the way Tarn slumps under his hands. He has the grace not to comment on it and the touch stays professional instead of turning pokey, but it's definitely smugness. He gets too concentrated on the gross sludge he starts pulling out of the crevices in a moment anyways and- eugh!

"Holy moley, when was the last time you got a deep cleaning up here?"

Tarn grumbles, slightly embarrassed of the answer. He’s always held himself to a high standard of cleanliness, which he has unfortunately let slip over the past few months. Nickel would be ashamed.

“Since before I arrived here, for certain. I haven’t exactly had the opportunity to have someone reach back there.” Other than that instance with Sixshot, but there wasn’t a whole lot of bathing happening in that shower when they were together.

His struts turn to jelly as Spinister’s brush reaches particularly deep, cleaning out months of sludge. It certainly wasn’t a subsonic purr vibrating in his chassis. No. Of course not.

It just felt so wonderful to be getting clean after everything that he’s suffered through.

"We gotta find a proper tube cleaning brush after this," Spinister mutters, trying to get the right angle to scrape the brush hairs against the deep crevices of the mechanisms there. "There's no way I can get it all off with just a wire."

The subsonic purr was a little distracting. It was a funny kind of distracting though. Out of all the sounds he ever expected the commander of the DJD to make, purrs weren't really up on the list there.

Tarn makes a small noise of acknowledgement, forcing his hand back into action. It won't do to let Spinister do all of the work.

Every inch of his armor is loosened, leaving him limp and hunching forward ever so slightly. As Spinisters wire brush tweaks against a particularly sensitve wire, the purr only grows louder and his optics darken completely. After a few moments of bliss, Tarn clears his throat, taking with it that contented rumble.

"I'm not sure where you think we will find a tube cleaning brush. I haven't seen one since I arrived here."

"I can make one if we don't find any? I just need wires and stuff."

He's honestly not sure why Tarn thinks most of this stuff is hard to make. Shaking his head, Spinister turns his attention to the other set of threads and goes to work there.

Here and here he makes it a point to gently smooth over and knead at kinked cables, ignoring the crud getting on his hands. Tarn doesn't deserve it, but... well, Spinister like the peace of mind that seems to come with the DJD commander getting relaxed. For now at least.

"Yes you are quite resourceful." It's all Tarn manages to say before Spinister moves on to his other shoulder.

He slumps harmlessly as recessed cables are gently kneaded, nearly melting into a puddle. He hadn't realized how tightly he had been holding his shoulders until Spinister's fingers began coaxing them to relax. But, between his skyrocketing stress levels, and the various injuries wreaking havoc on his frame, he supposes that he shouldn't be entirely surprised.

"It seems that you're capable of making basically anything with the right raw supplies..."

"Not really!" Spinister snorts, almost radiating smugness at the way Tarn just straight up slumps under his fingers. "I'm a surgeon, not an inventor. I can figure out stuff that already exists, not make new stuff. Poor imagination and all that!"

"... Or poorly managed imagination?" he mutters, mostly to himself, pinching a cable and setting it delicately back in it's rightful spot with a practiced twist of his wrists. "I don't remember. Krok talked about it lots anyways. He's a historian, but sometimes he's pretty okay at the psychology stuff too."

"Now," he grabs a handful of Tarn's threads and shoves his fingers somewhere unmentionable with a disgusting squelch. "Hold still."

Tarn’s whole body flinches as Spinister shoves his fingers deeply into his shoulder mechanisms.

“Ha---ah gently, Spinister, those are sensitive!” He snaps over his shoulder, armor tightening ever so slightly.

Perhaps if he had been expecting it the sensation would not have been so jarring. But, the gentle kneading and delicate pinching and straightening of cables had not prepared him for the sudden rough treatment.

Tarn pauses, hearing a repulsive sort of sound coming from whatever Spinister is doing.

“What are you digging at?"

Look, if he'd told Tarn what he was going to do, the guy wouldn't have been relaxed!

Well, he's not relaxed now, but at least Spin had managed to wedge his fingers in far enough.

"I don't know yet, but it's- hn- pretty stuck in there." Sorry, Tarn, buddy, but he's cramming his fingers in deeper there. There's a look of intense concentration on the heli's face and there's a rivulet of nasty old caked lube and clumps of blackened nano repair fluids running down Spin's wrist and Tarn's back.

Aaaaalmooost.... Spin could feel the edge of the thing slipping from between his fingers when he tries to tighten his hold.

Edited 2016-02-09 05:04 (UTC)

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.