Will look into it and come back with another reply later. What should you be able to do?
Maybe they should be a cross between the common HL2RP hands SWEP, and the actual vortigaunt hands seen in Half-life: Decay. This was how the vorti-claws looked in first person in Decay.
Being that, when the swep is in its lowered state (Being the citizen equivilent of not having fists raised, but being in an idle stance) the SWEP should function like the hands SWEP, being able to pick up and drop objects, stuff like that. When the vortigaunt holds R to raises their claws, (atleast in first person) it would function like the SWEP from Half-life: Decay, pressing the primary attack button would fire a bolt of energy, but with a slight delay because of charge up, and secondary fire would be a simple claw attack. Maybe a simple tap of R could be a heal beam/light that heals a target, as stated by Sexy Frog.
Just my two cents though, just doing a bit of spitballing.