capitalh | [closed]

Who: Chris Miles & Kit Peddler
Where: At Newt's clinic
When: Early April?
What: Chris is not good at taking care of his arms and goes to the clinic instead of Mintaka because he's embarrassed.
Warnings: Chris

Chris is, ah. Not the kind of person typically prone to being embarrassed or ashamed of the stupid things he says and does with frankly alarming frequency. Possibly because the frequency of these things is, as stated, alarming. One kind of learns to just accept it as a side effect of being themselves after a while.

But on the other hand it's not every day that he wakes up with a righteous hangover and his arm on the fritz, rattling and covered in food. He had planned to try and book an appointment at Mintaka to get it all fixed up, good as new, but honestly he's not sure if his arms come with a warranty or anything and if they do, this is absolutely the kind of thing that would void it. To his untrained eye and lacking investigative skills, it would seem that against his better judgement he was convinced to attempt to use his arm as some kind of food preparation and/or serving device, and even if that wouldn't void his hypothetical warranty, he's super keen for that not to be the kind of thing that goes on his file forever.

It takes some hours of sleuthing (read: 10 minutes of searching the Watch and another 20 minutes staring blearily at what people have to say about these places on Google,) before he settles on a clinic that seems like the least likely to give him a horrible infection or harvest him for parts, and so he is off! Dressed as his usual self in a hoodie and sunglasses (for the headache) to this fancy clinic, whereupon he will knock on the door and wait patiently like the civilised adult we all believe he can be.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He'd comment on Kit's if he wasn't busy trying to remember the details of his arms as he sits down as instructed, but mostly this just involves him staring blankly and looking distressed at the same time for what feels like a long time.

"Dunno," he finally says after a significant amount of time, "they're Mintaka, I think." There is the definitive 'I don't know shit please don't ask me any more questions," look on his face as he says it. Chris Miles is not the kind of man who remembers numbers and line names and all that, he's the kind of person who memorises every world record ever published.

Anyway.

Chris takes off his hoodie - maybe actually seeing the hardware will help Kit know what she's dealing with. His own arms are similarly, very clearly not the ones he grew himself, (because why would you bother hiding that kind of thing at all,) all white and chrome and much sleeker and more stylish than his wardrobe would suggest he'd ever go in for. The left one is in great condition; clean and shiny and obviously functional. The right, on the other hand, is a goddamn mess. There's stuff all over it, (upon closer inspection it may appear to be icing,) and its movements are kinda sluggish. Not to mention the aforementioned rattling and what looks to be a chunk of a poptart sticking out of the inner elbow.

"I, uh. Woke up like this." He gestures to the arm, kind of apologetically, "don't remember much of last night, if I'm honest."

Kit rolls her eyes when he can't remember the model number, and rattles it off as soon as Chris takes off his hoodie. It's a nice model, one of Mintaka's mid-range prosthetic full length arms. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but well known for being pretty reliable with a good synapse speed, and no major bugs since that third software update.

"Nice casing--" and then Kit moves around to the other side, and sees his right arm. "Is that frosting." It's not really a question, and she sounds kind of angry. "What did you do to it? You know you're supposed to keep these away from acidic or corrosive solutions, right? Did you even read the manual?" Not that Kit has read a manual ever in her life, but she considers herself exempt from tech rules. She grabs a grease rag from a toolbox off the table and starts furiously wiping the bigger icing globs off, going around the poptart as best she can. "Really, what the hell do you do on regular weekday evenings?"

Holy shit did this go downhill fast. Chris kind of reels back a little in his seat, not really sure about how to feel about being told off by a stranger for not taking care of his arm. He sort of hovers a little between "terrified" and "affronted," before he decides that Kit just doesn't know what she's talking about. Some tiny part of him acknowledges that she's probably right, but the much bigger part of him has elected to believe she's being really unfair here. His left arm is in perfect nick, of course he (usually) takes great care of them!

"Alright, fuckin' hell. I got a bit fucked last night. I wouldn't be here if this was normal, would I" If he wasn't relying on the benevolence of strangers right now, he would absolutely take his arm and go home. "Jesus."

Oh god, it's sticky, and it's getting on her organic hand and she can feel it. Kit shudders. She pulls a tiny screwdriver out of her pocket and sets to work pulling off the casing, which is going to need a serious wipedown. How did he even get the poptart in there?

"You know it's not a toaster, right? There are no heating elements in this model, it functions only as a cybernetic prosthesis, not a food preparation device."

How did he even qualify for a set of these? Usually doctors give the irresponsible morons regular hook-hand prosthetics, not multiple-hundred-thousand-dollar cybernetics.

"Fuckin' know that now." There's half a smile on his face like he's made a great joke, but judging by the look on Kit's it's... Probably not the best time for jokes, so he kind of sits quietly for a bit. Watching her work with a look on his face like a child being told off by their parents.

Probably best if he just shuts up for a while, yeah?

Kit gets the casing off, carefully sticking all the tiny screws to a magnet so they don't get lost, and a small shower of.... breakfast cereal? pours out all over the floor, the cot, and both of their laps. Kit jumps, startled.

"How did you even get-- you know what? I don't even want to know. Don't tell me."

These poor, poor cybernetics. That pop tart is really jammed in there. "This might hurt." She yanks it out roughly, managing to remove it mostly in one piece, but it takes a couple tries with a very large and scary looking pair of tweezers to get the last few chunks out. A tiny vacuum takes care of any stray crumbs or rainbow cereal, and Kit sits back, looking a little less repulsed.

"Try it now."

He winces when Kit pulls the poptart out, but for the most part Chris does an admirable job of holding still and keeping quiet during the whole thing. (Even at the cascade of cereal, which he smiles at. Honestly it's kind of an impressive feat that Drunk Chris pulled off there.)

When it's all done, he stretches his arm out, goes through the motions to make sure the artificial synapses are up to snuff. "It's better, yeah." He'd have to start punching stuff to make sure it's all 100%, but they can probably take care of that at Mintaka if it's not. "Thanks."

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