Elijah waves that off.

"Take off your shirt. I'm going to palpate your shoulder."

Elijah digs his fingertips in, fairly ungently scoping out the shape and structure of his augmented shoulder.

Then the other. Then he hums.

"You need an X-ray."

"Your shoulders are asymmetrical and I can't tell the cause from the outside. To put it bluntly, if you were an android I'd be recounting my screwdrivers."

Elijah draws in a deep breath.

"Yes. I can help you with that."

Apparently apropos of nothing, he leans in and carefully brushes a kiss across his mouth.

"Yes."

He reaches out, opens a case.

"They're sterile."

"Let me do the whole thing," Elijah suggests, voice....surprisingly gentle. "I can see what I'm doing."

"This is fine."

Although he does adjust the angle of the lighting, slightly, so he has the best possible view of what he's doing before he gets to work. He's got 'painstaking but efficient' down to a fine art, with more delicate work than this, and he's going to make it as painless as possible.

Elijah hums quietly as he works, carefully working out the last few scraps of solder, contenting himself that the job is done to its fullest before even trying to move on.

"...Alright. Just hold steady while I finish removal."

Elijah sets down the arm carefully on his worksurface and then reaches out for his flesh-and-blood shoulder, carefully curling his fingers around him.

"All done," he says quietly.

"You're welcome. I..."

He takes a moment.

"...I know I'm not...available to you in the ways that you need. But I want to be here for everything that I can offer."

Elijah almost visibly steels himself.

"...Have I upset you?"

Already?