BEASTLY || CHASE STEIN (EDITING)

chapter seven

Everyone has a safe place. For Garfield, it’s the machines, the insides of iron and the engines, oil his favourite smell. It might sound gross and strange to other people, but that’s been the reality since his younger years. An even safer place for him is when he’s under a car, where he can hide from the world.

“You should really invest in a backup arm,” Garfield said, peering at the joints in Victor’s arms.

Victor snorted, “But then I’d have no excuse to come visit, Gar,” he pointed out. Loki meowed in agreement by his side on the bench.

“Yes,” Garfield muttered irritably, “because I absolutely love it when you drop by when I’m working.”

Victor felt a brief flare of guilt at that, but only for a moment. When he’d called Garfield because his arm had seized up again, the other had sounded positively gleeful. Apparently Victor had just gotten him out of a really annoying client. He’d rather tinker with the arm anyhow, and they both knew it. Not like he had anything important to do anyway.

“Well, maybe if you had fixed it correctly the last time, I wouldn’t have had to come back,” Victor pointed out, his face curling up into a smirk.

Garfield shoved his safety glasses on top of his head, messing his hair even further, and glared at his friend. “I did fix it correctly,” he retorted. “It worked fine. And then you went and punched a wall, we literally saw each other last night you didn’t have to hurt yourself to see me.”

“Shut up…And it was a brick wall if we’re being specific,” Victor corrected, grinning now.

“Oh, right, a brick wall my bad,” Garfield repeated, his tone snippy. “Because that’s much better.” Loki, Wally's cat, put out at being ignored by the two, stepped across Victor’s legs and dug his claws pointedly into his thighs as she used him as a bridge to butt her head against Garfield’s chest, rubbing his t-shirt with a purr of greeting.

Garfield paused at that, then looked down. “What..what are you doing? Stop.” he asked.

“She’s only saying hi, don’t be mean to the kitty Gar,”  Victor stated, while also making faces at the cat as if it was a baby.

“Right,” Garfield said, nodding. “I knew that,” He held out his hand for the cat to sniff at, which she did. Then she rubbed her head into the curve of his palm, and Garfield visibly softened, scratching behind the cat’s ears.

“I’m usually more of a dog person but this is nice,” he said to no one in particular while still scratching the cat behind the ears.

“So, what exactly is wrong with it besides the obvious damages?” He asked, trying to get back at what he was originally supposed to be doing.

“The damn thing keeps randomly shocking me,” Victor said.

“Well that’s unpleasant,” Garfield said. “If that’s the problem, I’m going to have to kill the power first. A shock that hurts you could do worse to me.”

Victor  gestures to the prosthetic with his real hand.“Do what you need to do, I know you do a better job than the people who work with PRIDE,” he replied.

As the arm switched off, Victor relaxed a little bit. If the arm had been randomly shocking him, Garfield understood why he was so tense.

With Victor staring at him working silently, Garfield opened the panel to Victor’s forearm and started to poke around the mechanics. These were definitely gonna be needing a rewiring. “I reckon if you got a new one you wouldn’t be coming to me as much.”

Victor remained quiet for a moment or two before saying, “I would if I could afford it. I’m pretty sure that money has been really tight since dad died, but you know how it is. Your mom is helpful and everything but I don't know…you get what I mean.”