robothell | You Keep Coming Up

Entry tags:

ratchet | asafepairofhands

You Keep Coming Up

Who: Drift, Ratchet, Pharma. Anyone else hanging around the clinic?
What: The reunion no one wanted.
Where: Red Alert's clinic
When: A day or two after Pharma's meeting with Tarn.
Warnings: Lots of bitchiness and angry and yelling.

Well. A nice little chat with Tarn was all very good and all (not really), but there was still a small manner of the fact that Pharma had no shelter, nothing to sustain himself, and still absolutely no idea what was going on. He's been making do finding small alcoves of rubble to recharge under, but he needed some place to settle down, if only temporarily.

He doesn't realize he's hit some semblance of a building until he's practically right in front of the entrance of it. He blinks, pressing one hand against it and just staring for a moment. This seems like good shelter, but... it was also probably inhabited already. After all, this place was hardly completely abandoned.

"I'm unarmed." It's the first thing he can think of saying in the off-chance that there's someone here as he steps through the entrance. After a moment, he shrugs and mutters to himself, "Although if you're the sort that shoots first and asks questions later, that doesn't really do much good, does it?"

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Ratchet swings into the main room of the clinic from a storage area, still a little awkward on his crutches but moving much more smoothly now.

"Don't know why you'd walk into a clinic expecting to get shot," he begins, then... stops. His optics pale and he looks sick, livid with more emotion than he even knows what to do with anymore.

"Ah," he says faintly, his voice breathless with soft static. "I see. That's why."

Pharma's head snaps to attention at the first word, his own optics widened just slightly as Ratchet appears. They jump from his face to his hands (his hands, he can't help but add, his own fingers twitching slightly at the thought) to his crutches, then back to Ratchet's expression.

"Ratchet." His voice is a manufactured sort of pleasant, forcing a smile that looks more like a sneer. "Looks like you've seen better days."

Shock and pain flare in his optics for a moment before his jaw tightens, his back stiffening--it's hard to tell when people are from, here, but there's no mistaking the venom flickering in Pharma's face as his gaze lingers briefly at Ratchet's hands. That answers that, then.

"Yeah. Well, when Tarn came by asking for a free t-cog and a transplant, I told him where he could shove it, unlike some of us I could mention, and unlike some of us, I accept the consequences of my actions."

Ratchet limps closer steadily, deliberately slow, the crutches coming down with an ominous click at every second step.

"Get out."

Pharma's shoulders drop slightly as he sighs, spreading his hands -- but he does take a step back as Ratchet starts to approach. "Now now, there's no need to get hostile." He pauses for a moment, then mutters in addition, "Good to know that Tarn's branching out on the medics he's harassing these days."

"I'm so glad you're pleased," Ratchet snarls, but he stops his advance a few paces away when Pharma retreats, his optics burning.

"Why are you here, Pharma."

He relaxes slightly with a coy shrug and the return of that smile, brushing his hand against the wall behind him as though assuring that it's actually there. "A simple manner of curiosity. This is the first thing I've seen that suggests people aren't just wandering about aimlessly."

He glances back at Ratchet, smile fading just a bit. "This reunion was not exactly on the list of things I expected to encounter."

"How sad for you, being forced to deal with the mistakes you've made," Ratchet says, his voice a caustic indicator of how little patience he has left for playing silly buggers this week.

"I haven't shot you, but I'd recommend you stay away from First Aid. He's here as well. In fact, there's a lot of people I'd recommend you stay away from, unless you want me to ask Drift to chop off your hands again so you can't do any more damage."

His optics flare slightly at the mention of First Aid, but his forces himself to stay put and avert his gaze from Ratchet. "Is he now?" he asks, unable to keep a dry, venomous sort of amusement from his voice. "Well, since he seemed more than willing to shoot me without provocation the first time, there's no need for the threat. You'd be surprised how little of a threat you can be without a head."

Ratchet goes completely still.

"What?" he says, very quietly, his optics paling, watching Pharma's face with a weird expression of disbelief and sad resignation.

"Oh, he didn't tell you?" Pharma cocks his head to the side, gauging Ratchet's reaction for a moment. Finally, he raises his hand, makes a crude impression of a gun gesture, and points it towards his forehead. "At least, I'm fairly certain that's what happened. I seem to remember a very large gun followed by a very large explosion."

Ratchet looks a little ill.

"I wanted him to be better than you were," he said, his voice cracking cold as ice. He pulls himself together visibly, his mouth twisting. "Anyway, you can't say it wasn't justified. You would have killed him, too. Twice over, if you'd had the chance."

Pharma drops his hand with a soft exhale of a laugh. "Life is full of disappointments, Ratchet. At any rate, I never said he wasn't justified -- and you give me too much credit. You were supposed to be the one to cut him up in that bet we had going."

He pauses, taking yet another few steps towards the entrance, much more leisurely than before. "But you're right. I probably would have killed him. Only once over, then, but if I was the type to hold a grudge..."

"I wouldn't have done it," Ratchet says bleakly. He doesn't know what he would have done instead, but... not that. His jaw tightens.

"And my count before was correct. If he hasn't had a busted t-cog, he would have leaked to death at Delphi, just like everybody else. Don't tell me you've forgotten."

Oh, right. Delphi. "Ah, yes, that's right -- a little detail, it seemed so insignificant in the grand scheme of things." Pharma shrugs, crossing his arms and peering at Ratchet in scrutiny. "No, of course you wouldn't have. That's just like you."

"Yeah, it is," Ratchet almost snarls, taking another step towards Pharma. "No need to sound so disappointed. You should know me better by now."

"No need to get so defensive, Ratchet," Pharma says, managing to sound completely offended even as he takes yet another step away from Ratchet. "As it seems I've worn out my welcome, I'll leave you to it, then."

He turns away and starts to step out of the entrance, not offering a second look back and moving just a touch too quickly.

Ratchet watches Pharma run, venting raggedly and leaning hard on one crutch as he raises a fist and slams it hard into one of the walls. It leaves a rough transfer of red paint and bares the soft, dark blue of his knuckles as it slides away before he pulls himself together, bringing both hands back to his crutches and limping back to finish inventory, still feeling ill.

Living should have been getting easier, not harder. First Aid is in a constant state of agitation-- he shifts between irritability and crying. He can't sleep anymore -- not anymore -- and instead he shifts around the clinic aimlessly, almost useless.

Pharma's alive. He knows he shouldn't let it get to him, but it does. He feels cheated. All that stress and despair and it didn't amount for anything at all. He'd have to kill him -- again -- and that makes his spark throb in his chassis. He missed Pharma, but what he had become was monstrous.

He can't hole up in the clinic forever. A doctor who didn't tend to patients wasn't a doctor at all. There were larger threats looming over the clinic-- lack of supplies, the DJD. It seems like mechs were losing energon quicker than they could put it back into their frames.

First Aid has a gun at least. He keeps it magnetized to his hip as he takes out the rubbish, then vents softly and straps a pack over his shoulder before setting out into the streets. Scavenging was likely going to become something he was used to doing, especially just to get out and be somewhat useful.

Pharma had been careful to make sure that he wasn't seen hanging around this clinic too much since his chat with Ratchet. Didn't want to seem desperate or anything. But the fact that First Aid was here, that the last thing he remembered was First Aid's finger tightening around a trigger, stuck with him.

He's just starting to doze off into his umpteenth bout of unwakefulness, slouched and hidden in the shadows, when he hears someone coming. First Aid, he realizes after a moment of looking around and noticing that he was, indeed, no longer alone.

He moves quickly, the teeth of a stationary chainsaw blade coming over First Aid's head to dig into his neck and pin him against Pharma as he moves behind him. "Fancy meeting you here," he purrs.

Funny, he thought that he'd be more prepared for this.

First Aid's venting hitches, his frame tensing as the teeth of the blade press against his neck. His hands tighten around the straps of the pack, his visor flickering, but he doesn't try turning his head to see behind him. He knows who is there from the brush of his EM field and the voice in his audio.

"Pharma," he murmurs. "You're not dead. I assume you want revenge?"

His gun is at his hip, but it's useless with Pharma behind him.

First Aid can probably feel the rising of Pharma's shoulders as he shrugs. "Can't deny that the idea's quite appealing. Although how does one exact revenge on being shot in the head? It's hard to think of something creative."

First Aid is being surprisingly lenient so far, though. Interesting. Pharma doesn't make any other moves, no gesture that gives an intent of turning the chainsaw on or anything.

"You've always been creative, though. Rust virus?" First Aid says, hardly masking the venom in his tone.

He swallows, his mind racing. What should he do? Should he call for Ratchet? He had to break free somehow-- without slicing his throat open. His visor narrows and he reaches up to touch one of the teeth of the saw, feeling how sharp it is.

First Aid takes a gamble, lifting his leg and trying to stomp on Pharma's foot.

Oh, still bitter about that? Pharma scoffs quietly into First Aid's audial. "Well, that was --"

He doesn't finish his sentence; instead, he is rudely interrupted by a stomp to his foot, and he makes the mistake of loosening his grip on First Aid, swearing more out of anger than pain before he swings his shoulder cannons around to point at him.

Bitter was an understatement. Delphi's last few months was downright traumatic.

He squirms away as Pharma's grip loosens turning around just to get a facefull of cannons pointed directly at him. His venting stills almost completely, but he pulls his own gun from his hip, leveling it back at Pharma.

"You always have to be dramatic."

"And you always have to be so difficult."

He has First Aid outgunned by a mile. He clearly has the upper hand here, and there's really nothing stopping him from taking an eye for an eye. Except that he can't quite bring himself to fire -- which is odd, since he already went to the whole trouble of holding First Aid at chainsaw-point and all.

It's the vague contemplation of what he's doing and what he should be doing that keeps his cannons at bay.

First Aid doesn't have that same hesitation. Just seeing Pharma made his lines feel like ice had been poured through him. He could hear the rush of energon in his audio, drowning out the sound of Pharma's voice. He can still hear the groans of the dying at Delphi, Ambulon's scream, Pharma's laughter.

He might be outgunned, but he doesn't hesitate to level his own gun at Pharma's head and pull the trigger.

He registers First Aid moving, but it doesn't quite click until he sees where the gun is being aimed, and the increasing tension of First Aid's finger on the trigger. For a brief moment, he feels his head exploding against a wall again.

Before he knows it, he moves out of the way, letting it clip his shoulder with a hiss, and lunges towards First Aid, hand -- no, chainsaw -- extended. And he revs it, catching the teeth of the blades in the cords between First Aid's shoulder and torso before pulling down with a snarl.

The pain is searing hot as the teeth catch in his shoulder, enough that the spray of hot energon -- his blood -- against his cheek feels distant. First Aid doesn't scream; instead he makes a choked sound, catching in his vocalizer as his visor brightens so much it was almost white.

Nausea hits him like a battering ram in his tank, almost purging as he feels his warm wobble in the socket, then drop with a hard clang to the ground. He sees it through swimming vision, lying next to him with its fingers still curled around the gun.

Thank god. He's alive.

He backs away, still fighting the urge to purge, his optics on Pharma. First Aid almost trips over his own arm, venting raggedly.

"P-Pharma..."

There's a brief moment of triumph as First Aid's arm clatters to the ground. But... this isn't right, is it? It doesn't feel as good as it should, knowing he's won and is on the path of avenging his own death.

So he stops, chainsaw still out, watching First Aid like a hawk as he vents, hard and shallow. The gun's gone, but he could still reach for it if he hesitates, couldn't he? So Pharma kicks the detached arm away, hopefully enough out of reach that he can react again if First Aid decides to go for it.

The flow of energon keeps spurting from the stump in pulses before First Aid gets enough of a grip on his senses to reroute the energon flow. He vents raggedly, the sound almost wet, and his visor is so bright it's almost white.

He looks down at his arm as it's kicked aside, his detached hand still tightly gripping the gun. Can he grab it before Pharma takes off his head?

"Is this a-about making me suffer?"

He shifts, circling a distance from Pharma, trying to get into a better position to grab the gun.

"It wasn't, but I can't complain about the turn of events."

Pharma counters his movements against First Aid's, every intent now to dissuade him from going for the gun again. He can't even remember what his original purpose in coming here was, but right now all he can do is eliminate the possibility of having his head exploded again. Something he'd really rather not re-live.

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You Keep Coming Up

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Beep boop sometime like a day or so after that chat with Ratchet

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