Best Friends Forever

Things were getting crazy recently in the world. Ratchet almost dealt with Drift and his injuries lately and then Hot Rod had convinced him to join a group of Autobots in taking down the Institue. Granted, he was just in the tunnels helping the injured while the rest of the more able mechs and femmes dealt with the actual Institute. From what he heard, it was a big success. That didn't stop him from being stressed, though.

Currently, the medic was hanging out in the common room of his home, enjoying a cube of energon and playing crossword puzzles on a datapad.

There's a signal at the door--oh, it looks like it's Pharma, and he's brought drinks as he'd promised that one time. Just what Ratchet needs, isn't it?

It's exactly what Ratchet needs, though Pharma is a slightly unsettling sight. They hadn't spoken for a little while. Maybe all he needed to do was catch up with the mech again and the doubts eating away at his spark would go away.

Ratchet opened the front door and smiled at his best friend. "Pharma," he greeted. "It's been a while." He stepped back to let the mech enter.

"Hey Ratchet!" Pharma greets his fellow medic with a smile as he steps inside. "I promised I'd be your drinking buddy didn't I? So here I am." The other doctor set a small crate of various types of engex down on a table. He notices Ratchet looks slightly unsettled and frowns out of concern. "Something bothering you?" he asks, opening the crate to bust out the first bottle.

He wasn't kidding when he said he'd be Ratchet's drinking buddy. Some of his favorites were in that crate. Pharma's question brought him back to reality. "Huh? Oh, nah, I'm okay. Just a bit tired." He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Where did you get all of this? I'm going to need to visit your place more often. I'll save creds then~"

"Oh, around." Pharma waves a hand in a generally vague fashion. "Mostly from specialty shops in Iacon." He sits down at the table, settling in to make himself comfortable before handing Ratchet one of his favorites from the crate. "Tired huh. Well aren't we all. What's been going on with you? Anything new?"

"New?" he repeated. "Not really, no," he said. "Just been repairing patients as usual." That wasn't a lie and he didn't have to go into details thanks to the patient-doctor confidentiality. "What about you?" he asked. "How is your research going with that Insecticon?"

"Oh, I'm done with that particular project for the time being." Pharma replies. "I'm pretty satisfied with the amount of data I've managed to get from him. There will be more in the future, however."

There's a moment's pause, and he takes another draw from his drink. "You sure nothing's bothering you? You look..I don't know, off. I mean, you know I was serious back there when I said you could talk to me about anything, Ratch. You know as well as I do that research shows people often feel a lot better about their problems once they've talked openly to someone close to them about it."

At the moment, he really didn't like the quip about research and talking to people about his problems. He didn't want to talk to a shrink. But Pharma wasn't a shrink and he needed to get is concerns off of his chassis. Ratchet sighed. "You're right," he admitted. "I suppose I'm a bit ... concerned. About you, actually, and the place where you work."

An optic ridge goes up at this. Pharma puts the drink down and focuses on his friend a bit more. "Me? You're worried about me? I mean...you're not talking about Deltaran are you? You work there too, you know." he teases, grinning slightly.

Ratchet chuckled. "No, I'm not talking about Deltran, though we've gotten some strange visitors there, haven't we?" He took a sip of his drink. "I meant that institute you were doing research at. I've been hearing some ... troubling things about it."

"Oh..." Pharma relaxes a little bit. "Well, go on. What have you been hearing?" he asks.

"I've been hearing about experiments being performed and ... not necessarily the good kind. Are patients being held against their will there? And having chips implanted into their processors?" he asked. It must have really unnerved him, this news, because he was wringing his servos and watching Pharma carefully.

Pharma gives him an incredulous look. "Where the slag did you hear that sort of rustwash?" He sighs, shaking his head. "That sounds like something that would happen in those dreadful gladiator pits or something. It's nothing like that, I promise you."

Ratchet raised an optic ridge. He didn't know what was really going on in the Institute. Hot Rod told him about some of the patients and what they were going to, but the medic never actually saw any /proof/ of the matter. Still ... "So what /do/ you do there?"

"Well one thing I've done is come up with a sort of dictionary of wavespeech terms, the EMF fluctuation language the Insecticons use. It's really quite fascinating. I've even started work on a written form of it." Pharma replies. "We were also working on prototype digestive system. But I assure you that any test subjects we had were treated with as much care as possible." he frowns. "Who exactly told you this, anyway? Or did you read it somewhere?"

Ratchet sighed in relief. How could he think Pharma would get involved with such monstrous actions? He was the same old medic he always was and the work he was doing was /good/. But he wasn't going to tell Pharma who told him about the Institute. "I read it somewhere," he replied. "Some little pamphlet talking about the Institute lying and torturing its subjects. But ... I see it was wrong."

Pharma shrugs, and doesn't press further. It doesn't come as a surprise. "Oh, you know there's a lot of that sort of rustwash out there. Conspiracy theories, and scrap like that. Sensible mechs like you and I never believe any of it." He goes back to his drink and takes another swig, then pats Ratchet on the shoulder. "It's a crazy world out there, Ratchet. There'll always be people out there who are against you, no matter what you do. Yes, even if you fix the broken and heal the sick."

"I suppose you have a point there," he agreed, taking another sip of his own drink. "Thanks for that, Pharma. I feel loads better. And I'm sorry if it seemed like I doubted you. The Institute is just an unknown for me." He smiled a little. "A toast to fixing the broken and healing the sick."

Pharma smiles and raises his bottle as well. "To fixing the broken, and healing the sick." The glass \*clinks\* together briefly and he pulls back to take a sip. "Yeah, the unknown always scares people, it's only natural. But you know what, it doesn't -have- to be an unknown for you. I'll see about getting a time for you to visit. But don't go telling everyone about it, because with that kind of proprietary research, -everyone- wants to visit. And you don't seem like the type to enjoy getting mobbed." he chuckles.

"Definitely not," Ratchet laughed. "Yeah, I'd like to come by and see the work you do. I've been meaning to visit, but I thought I'd wait until your schedule was free." He was hoping to meet this Kickback, too. Now what he felt guilty about was the knowledge he had about Hot Rod and the others breaking people out of the Institute. Though ... why would they need to be broken out? No- no, he wasn't going to doubt his friend anymore than he already had. Pharma was a good mech. He wouldn't hurt anyone.

Exactly, Pharma wouldn't hurt anyone. Besides if he had something to hide there, why would he be inviting Ratchet to come visit, right? That didn't make any sense. Clearly Hot Rod and his friends are just a bunch of crazy people. "Yeah I've been pretty busy, but I'll let you know once I've got some time." He pauses, tossing the empty bottle he's just finished.

"Listen, Ratchet...I know I kind of just said this, but...if you ever hear any kind of crazy conspiracy theory stuff about torture and vivisection or anything like that, don't believe one iota of it. There are a lot of glitched diodes out there, and a lot of them are trying to pull you into their twisted schemes by making themselves out to be heroes. I'm telling you right now, all they want is to overthrow the current leadership and send this planet into chaos because they're somehow convinced that the authorities are messing with their heads." he shakes his head. "Even some sensible people like us have gotten sucked into it. It's really pretty sad."

Ratchet didn't know if he would go that far. Hot Rod and Drift were just kids, really. They had good sparks, but they may have been a bit misguided in their judgments. Maybe they misinterpreted what was going on in the facility. He would find out soon enough when Hot Rod brought Nautica to him. Until then, he was perfectly content with believing that Pharma was the mech he had always been. "Yeah, alright," he said, if only to appease his friend. "Thanks for coming by. We should do this more often. I promise to leave the heavy conversation out next time." And he laughed.

"Hey." Pharma smiles and puts a reassuring hand on Ratchet's shoulder. "I don't mind heavy. Like I said, any time you need to talk about something I'm an open audial, okay?" He stands up, but leaves the crate with the rest of the drinks there. "Yeah, we definitely need to do this more often... if it's at all possible."

What did he mean by that, Ratchet wondered. He stood up as well and patted Pharma heartily on the back. "Thanks for coming by," he said again. "Be careful heading home and I look forward to visiting the Institute."