Crash.
"God damn it!"
The loud noise pulled Clank from the engrossing book, stunning him into silence before his expression softened, a gentle sigh working its way through the metal mouth; its usual exasperation replaced with a sense of benignant fatigue. His feet moved quickly when they hit the floor, more or less running in the direction of the clamor. He paused when he finally reached the door to the garage, of all places. Annoyance nearly got to him, before he forced himself to calm down.
It was not like this was any easier on Ratchet, after all.
To think that it had only been a few days prior – one or two, actually – when everything had been, well, not normal, not by the standard definition of the word, but typical for them. And then they were under attack. Not quite an unusual circumstance for them, either, despite the situation being resolved abnormally quickly. But that final fight... it was still all too easy to recall the sudden loudness of an explosion, followed by a pained half-gasp from Ratchet when he collided, head first, with a wall. He had made it out alive, thankfully, but there had been minor complications caused by the situation. Frankly, it was baffling. This was the first fight where he had not seen Ratchet walk away in one piece, cracking that confident smirk that sometimes fell into an almost smile when their eyes met...
Sighing, Clank took the final step and pushed the garage door open, leaving him in a predictable, if not saddening, predicament. Tools and half-finished gadgets garnished the floor of the garage as, in the center of the mess, Ratchet grumbled and rubbed at his foot. His ears perked the moment the door had been opened, and lifeless eyes suddenly met the robot's. A touch of uncertainty laced with the simple calling of, "Clank?"
"I am here, Ratchet," Spoke the robot, voice softer than normal to account for his friend's ultra-sensitive hearing – something almost nobody else took into account, resulting in subconscious flinching that made him look all the more vulnerable. Carefully maneuvering past the fallen gadgets, Clank reached his blind friend's side quite quickly.
The blow to the head, according to the doctor that examined Ratchet when he had awoken in a panic to darkness, had caused critical damage to the occipital lobe, effectively rendering the Lombax sightless. Thankfully, a neurotic implant would correct the problem. Unfortunately, the utter lack of Lombaxes anywhere in the universe meant that a modified implant would have to be created for him. In Bogon. It would not be here for weeks, at the least. Until then, Ratchet was SUPPOSED to be banished from the garage...
Upon pointing out this little forgotten tidbit, the Lombax scoffed, brows crunching in annoyance, "Hey, this is my garage! And anyway, I didn't really mean to come in here. I was just out on the terrace and," Here, he shrugged helplessly, "habits, you know?"
"I suppose so," Still, Clank shook his head in disapproval, then remembered Ratchet could not see it. He blinked as Ratchet attempted to stand on his own, using the bench that had, for so long, been used to record and build to steady himself. Upon putting weight on the foot he had been nursing, the Lombax winced.
"God damn it," The curse was muttered under his breath this time, "I stubbed my toe."
Clank giggled. What a ridiculous thing to worry about, in his predicament. The look on Ratchet's face, however, suggested that it was not all that amusing to the Lombax, so he slowed the laughter to a halt and placed his hand over one of the ungloved hands resting upon the desk and ignored the surprised jerk it gave before settling, "Please, allow me to help you."
It was obvious from the look on Ratchet's face that the idea did not sit well with him, but he did not complain, instead allowing Clank to help him straighten out before gently leading him through the mess of metal on the floor. Sometime before Ratchet got his sight back, Clank decided, the robot would do him a favor and clean that mess up. In the meanwhile, though, he kicked inventions and tools off to the side as he walked backwards, leading his best friend awkwardly by the hands. Despite the height difference and the blindness, it was actually kind of nice. There were not many times when Clank got to aid Ratchet in return for all he had given to the robot.
And his hands... he had never felt them without the thick leather before; although unable to feel like an organic, he could read the texture of the fur (soft, it told him, soft and thin, worn down from years of constant rubbing against the leather); the temperature of the skin underneath (cool, but not freezing, matching appropriately to the mildly chilly weather out on the terrace); the tension of the muscles underneath (he was trying so hard to relax, so hard, but the muscles under his skin were still taut with uneasy tension). Soft fingers flinched hesitantly before carefully wrapping around Clank's own, engulfing the robotic palms whole.
Even after they had exited the garage, Clank continued carefully walking backwards, leading Ratchet into their shared living quarters so that he could sit safely on the sofa that Clank had, moments ago, been reading peacefully on. Ratchet situated himself on it, every movement careful and calculated in a way that Clank always knew he was capable of but never got to see until that fateful moment. It was saddening, actually, to see Ratchet put so much effort and care into something as simplistic as sitting. He had never seen the Lombax so down.
Except for at the Great Clock...
"This sucks," Ratchet eventually said, coolly, as if it were a confirmed fact backed with indisputable evidence.
Sympathy pouring through his words, Clank replied, "Do not worry about it too much. You will have those new implants in less than two weeks. Miss Apogee herself guaranteed-"
"Not that," Ratchet replied, then retracted, "Well, no, I mean, yeah, kind of, but mostly I meant," He held up his hand, which was still connected to the robot's, "THIS."
An unfamiliar weight settled in the robot's core, "Oh," and he moved to remove the metal digits. To his surprise, the fingers around his own tightened, making release impossible lest his best friend be injured further, and no way in any theoretical underworld would he allow that to happen.
"No, wait, damn it," The mechanic shook his head, "Not you, you metallic goofball," His voice grew almost inaudibly soft as he added, "Never you," in just the right way to replace that weight with the light fluttering sensation of energy pulsing at an abnormally high rate, "I meant, just... needing help. In general," The lifeless eyes did not say much for his state of mind, but the way his ears tilted suggested sadness and, more prevalently, frustration, "It sucks, thinking back to when you were a little kid, barely able to walk, and realizing you were more independent then than you are now."
Gently, Clank applied pressure to the hand intertwined with his own, in his own subtle way of encouraging the emotions coming out. Ratchet's hand, in turn, squeezed back gently in recognition, enough to let the robot know that he would not attempt to slip away.
"Before you came into the picture and we were big galactic heroes and all that gunk, it was... well, just kind of me. And I was okay with that. More than okay with it, actually," There was a wistfulness to his voice; more nostalgia than actual yearning, but it still made Clank frown, thankful in a guilty way that Ratchet was unable to see it, "And I could provide for myself. What we have now wouldn't have even been in my dreams; hell, even having a ship kind of seemed like a far-off fantasy back then. And even now, I help people. That's my job. To need help... seems wrong."
A wave of understanding practically flooded the robot's processor. It took a moment for him to be able to file all of it away and respond, "I can understand where you are coming from, Ratchet. But needing help is nothing to be ashamed of. To be honest, you having never required it before makes this kind of... an honor. If that makes sense," Clank then frowned, unsatisfied with his word choice. But how do you tell your best friend that you are thankful enough for the opportunity to come to their aid that a situation such as this actually seemed to improve in his eyes. It sounded selfish.
Thankfully, Ratchet gave an ear to ear grin that was infectious enough for Clank to return it, even if it could not be seen, "Yeah, I get it, pal. If you were anyone else, though, there's no way I'd let THIS," Again, he held up their conjoined hands, "happen. You're lucky you're you."
"So I am," Agreed the robot, settling comfortably into the couch. A relaxed silence settled around them until, eventually, Ratchet spoke again.
"You know what the worst part about all of this is, though?" When Clank responded to the negative, Ratchet continued, "All the freakin' blueprints stuck in my head. Figures when I'm blind and unable to jot this stuff down that I'd suddenly come up with an idea to solve that coolant leaking problem the Solana Troops have been having with their cruisers."
It was so nice to have Ratchet back to making jokes; so nice, in fact, that Clank asked, "Would you like me to help you blueprint it?"
"...would you have to let go?"
"Yes."
"...in a little while, then."
Disclaimer: Ratchet and Clank and the OTP challenge do not belong to me.
Authoress' Notes: Day 1 is complete. The prompt was 'hand-holding', but didn't I already make a one-shot centered around them holding hands and being awkward? So instead we get blind Ratchet. Yay! Why am I yaying that? That is a terrible thing to yay. Don't worry, though; he'll be better in the next prompt.
What did I do good on?: The Clank POV. It should be illegal to gush over your own work, I swear; some of these lines had me grinning like an idiot.
What did I fail on?: Staying on task. It took three hours of time collectively to come up with and write this. It took almost the entire day to actually finish it.
Random question for reviewers?: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers, Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
(Random sidenote: When I'm tired, I can say tongue twisters with no problem. WEEEEEEEEIRD.)