#you can't take him on a fair fight so you'll debride his face: nice and clean as a Fuck You

[witchofthesouls]

Did Tarn ever get mad at the nurse or vice versa during the carriage/marriage?

(It's absolutely Tarn’s fault. He tried doing oral, but you shrieked at what's under his mask. For very good reasons, even if you did knee his face and got Nickel involved.)

Your servos are absolutely professional, face and field schooled in medical neutrality.

You inwardly seethe and rage at the mech's complete stupidity.

The exposed mechanisms of Tarn’s face shutter and click as you dig out the infection with a scalpel and scrap out the dead mesh and wiring and smooth out the flayed edges. Not even the pre-round treatment could fully wash away all the corrosion and slime of dead nanites.

If he wants to refuse a very recommended Class-A pain patch, then fine, you're not stopping his sadomasochistic, self-inflicted tendencies.

You're already debriding his half-rusted face with an open panel in a clean towel. You can't bring yourself to care, especially when you had to dip your arms inside a Class-C medical sealant because not only your idiot of a donor allowed a very treatable infection to set deep and fester under the mask and you had to squirt a treatment up into your valve and slather it across the folds and down your legs, Nickel needs to scope your gestational chamber to check if there's contamination in the fluids.

And because you're carrying and the stupid fuck under your hands has to go under several rounds of treatment, Nickel is currently whipping up more because she's the only one that's not a potential health hazard for the nice, sterile pharmaceutical corner.

Through the entire process, the knee that touched the active infection aches because you ferociously scrubbed it clean and applied the treatment, and thick, cold sludge is slowly, ever-so-slowly dripping out of your confused valve.

There's a set schedule and your frame has gotten used to it, especially your pelvis.

(And until Tarn is fully treated and all his masks make several runs through the autoclave, your valve will keep itself warm with the Thing's company and your own hands.)

“Tilt back,” you command and he follows, and you stretch out the heavy bottom lip at the corner with a thumb, pulling it taunt to get a full view of the rusted protoform, which slowly crawls to his jawline.

Tarn's pretty. He has strong features and scars on the cleaner half of his face. There are scars that bisect his lips and several across his nose that trail into the raging cesspool.

You wonder if that's how it started: a facial injury and no care for preventative measures and his weird tendency towards self-inflicted pain.

“Breathe in,” you command, placing the scalpel at the slimy-brown portion of the infected lip. And he inhales through his nose, the exposed cabling of his check and temple twitch, nervecircuits spark and spasm at the air exposure, and in a few parts it was absolutely necessary to dig so deep you can see grey endoskeleton.

Tarn is surprisingly expressive as well. Pupil mechanisms fully dilated, corners of his optics pulling, nose flaring as he remains stiff, courtesy of the med-berth's partial frame-paralyzation.

Well, you did warn Tarn, and he isn't asking for a pain patch, even now when you're deliberately giving him a moment.

This will be the most excruciating part of the ordeal. The mouth has many specialized sensory suites and pressure sites. Plus, you need to excise the infected inner lip as well. Perhaps the gumline, too.

Tarn isn't a newbuild. His profession deals with frame functions and processes. He’s far more knowledgeable than the average lay-mech of sensory mechanics.

And he has your comm line to literally ask for the damn patch.

“Breathe out,” you command, and he exhales. You make the first scoop, and to his credit, Tarn doesn't flinch, nor did you have to command the med-berth to fully paralyze him.