Ep. 1 - AR - "Shift Change" - [Open]

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(( Starting it off with Layby and Dusk but wanted to leave it open in case anyone wants to ask to join! <3 ))

Work was pretty fraggin' good.

Good in the way that there was plenty to do, but nothing of the wrong kind - no mechs on the table to fix save for the small stuff, no life or death situations, but it wasn't slow either. His charges were protected. Well. Safe. Good.

There were some new mechs landed that needed a check, but it was shift change and Ratchet had it handled despite his offers for lending a hand. The Bay had been reorganized, equipment (most of it) cleaned during his night shift and all things in their proper place.

Including, to his present surprise, on himself.

It was personal-log day for him. Where he'd take a day every certain amount of time and add to the detailed case study on himself. Keep notes, mark changes in behavior, sensations, everything. And he noticed, as he added to the log in the washracks, that this is the first time he felt… okay. There was no change, of course. But he was better. The fidgeting was given purpose in the Med Bay, as were the manic tendencies that he could direct towards something productive.

Good.

It felt like the perfect time to take himself over to the Neutral base in his off-shift after a quick cycle of recharge, putting him on the African side around dusk (lol, he thought). With Prime's approval, Cleaver's okay, and Ratchet closely linked to his comm., Dusk bridged over into the atrium and made a bee-line for the bar.

"Layby!" He called before he even rounded the corner. "Layby. I need something. A magical something. Only you can give me this something, oh wizard."

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"Is this 'something' in liquid or mech-pile form?" Layby hollered back before the other mech had come into view. Just in case, he was already sliding a cube under the tap, grinning as he did so.

Dusk's happiness was infectious, and sat atop the warm familiarity of another oath-sworn soldier's spark to put an ease in his struts like nothing else in the 'verse.

Cube filled by the time Dusk crossed the threshold, Layby sent it sliding along the bar for interception.

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"Y'tell me. You're the wizard."

Dusk reached out a hand as he passed through the door and with practiced ease swept up the cube as easily as he would a neatly inventoried item. Chuckling as he took the first of many long swigs, he made his way down to the center of the bar top to be right in front of Layby. "S'pose that answers that, then."

He sat slowly, relishing in the tingling feeling that started in his tanks and spread out through his circuits - little static shocks that followed the effect of the high-grade in the most delightful way. "Ahhhh, that's th'best." And in one exvent his body hunched over the counter, supported on his elbows. Brother-glad-see you again pulsed through his field, though, edged with the type of good exhaustion that followed a filling day's work of inventory and absolutely no one on the table.

"How've things been o'er here? Seems pretty quiet. Cleaver alright?"

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Layby chuffed a laugh to himself, absorbing and reflecting the warm pulse back. "Yeah, s'far as I know. Did some good trade the other day, and got to share her cavern of..." One optic squinted, and it wasn't an exaggerated sign of searching concentration. He tapped a fingertip on the bar, then shrugged with a wry expression. "Cat called it 'assorted random junk and crap', which about covers it, I reckon. Got some stuff for the 'bay she's been wanting, anyway."

He stooped to pick up the tray of parts he'd tucked away beneath the bartop last night, setting it down between them both with finality. The firm placement communicated that Dusk's company was welcomed, and he wasn't going anywhere for a while. Replacing a cracked camera lens and re-soldering some wiring didn't exactly command a lot of attention.

"Word's starting to get about that we're holding, though," he went on slowly, thoughtfully. "Takes a while for folks to believe that a ceasefire is gonna stick anywhere, and there's never been a DMZ where The Big Two are both sharing a sector."

Layby's field sobered a bit, the long, thin tools he was working with turning inside the camera with painstaking care. After a few seconds the heavy waves eased back down. Layby had had long practice of accepting that there were more things out of one's control than in, and sometimes all you could do was hunker down and hope a shell didn't land overhead.

"Everyone's been decent, though." He glanced up to meet Dusk's gaze, his smile pulled crooked by the bifurcating scar. "Haven't needed to even hint at lobbing."

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Dusk focused on the depths of his cube, allowing the ebb and flow of Layby’s field to lull him into a thoughtful silence as he listened. Though he remained foreword on his elbows, despite the way his eyes drifted through his energon - one of his many tells that showed his attentiveness. A habit from training as a medic. Word starting to get out, looped lazily in his mind while he chewed on his tongue to the steady tap, tap, tap that inevitably began when stillness happened.

“No,” He agreed quietly, drawling heavily as he spoke. “Ha’n’t been a planet like this in a long time either… not many o’ us, but still enough that the idea of stayin’ hidden feels strange… don’t it?” He mused, the way his voice carried hinting that maybe he was forgetting he was speaking aloud at all. But then he blinked, and his optics brightened when they refocused back on the cube to raise it to his lips, “I hope it sticks.”

The tug of Layby’s field guided Dusk’s vision back up, just in time to catch that crooked smile and readjust his own field back to something more casual and less depressing. “Oh? S’kinda sad - I’d be loin’ foreword t’it.” And chuckling around a swig, he raises a finger before continuing. “Then, I’m sure y’could always loose that li’l one y’got runnin’ around. What’s her name? Cat? Firecracker tha’ one. I c’n see why she and Cleaver mesh so well.”

“Any new ah…” After knocking back the last of his cube he pauses, catching himself just as he’s near half way over vaulting the counter space - like being caught jumping over the back of the couch. And just like a guilty child, he simply slows his movements down until he’s told ‘no’, optics wide and voice light. “Any new ‘tenants’, then? Y’know, th’semi-permanent kind?” If Layby allowed, he’d continue over until his pede’s hit the ground. “Sorry, y’jus’ seemed so cute an’ focused, I’d hate t’disturb yeh fer another drink.” It’s as if he thought his grins were actually as innocent as he felt they looked.

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"Uhuh," Layby drawled, the sound long and deep as to encompass Dusk's explanation, expression and calling him cute.

Not that he could actually be annoyed at the fragger. Soldiers had long fuses, and even longer with one another.

He folded his arms and chuffed through his vents. "Yeah, go on then. But ahm keeping tab of every drop. Got some generator parts need greasing and you're just the mech to hold the bucket."

And it sounded like Dusk needed to vent. The younger mech's sunny disposition was not an act, and rarely used as a cover for sadness. He experienced his emotions fiercely, and transitioned between moods at a velocity that was initially disconcerting. Layby had learned not to chase the shadows, though; if Dusk wanted to talk, he would. If he wanted to be happy and enjoy the company of kin, then he'd damn well do that too.

Contrary to the warning, Layby did not watch Dusk serve himself another cube. He poured himself half of one, and nursed it slowly. "It's quietened down here a fair bit, now. No new tenants, steady traffic, an' Cat's keeping on with whatever it is humans do when we're not lookin'."

He drew his finger around the straight edges of the cube. "Oh, James got to bothering Fortress Maximus. Don't think he's a cat lover."