Ep 0.5 - Sleep Over - Closed

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It was comfortable and comforting to sprawl across Shadowrunner's chassis, and given tacit permission by her dragging him into that position in the first place, Steeljaw made the most of it. She was warm, an alive system and her plates warm with the resonation of her spark, the feel of it beneath his own systems doing as much as her fingers to melt him into unresisting scrap. Chassis to chassis, he pushed his helm up underneath her chin, audial pressed to the minute clicks and crackles of a Cybertronian vocalizer at rest.

"You have the best ideas," he assured her. "And Fowler doesn't need to know anything except that Miko and her crazy organic youngling friends made a truly horrible amateur horror video. And that someone does excellent sound mixing of roars, squeaks, and people screaming. After all, it's not like we would be in the video - that would make it something else entirely. Killer bunnies versus killer shrews, interrupted by attack of the giant metal aliens - because there's no amount of perspective shooting that's going to make the average shrew look less than microscopic next to us."

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"You know Fowler. He'd much rather the humans kept themselves invisible; any attention is bad attention."

Shadow huffed softly, attention turning back to their entirely-theoretical-no-really-we-have-better-sense-than-that movie. "We could green screen the shrews to make them look bigger, and then they could go the Godzilla route and become the heroes, if we ever want to do a sequel. There's something to be said about an Evil Killer Robot Lion From The Future versus Giant Shrews." She ran her hands down his sides, thumbs digging into the spots where she knew his linkages tended to tighten up. "Unless you wanted to be the hero, and save the planet from the evil shrews. 's basically the same movie, except for the ending."

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"I don't know, I think green screening might be pushing the envelope of how much special effects is allowed in low-budget horror," Steeljaw objected, but the vibrations of his laughter gave him away. "Evil Killer Robot Lion from the Future has a nice ring to it, though. I'm sure I could borrow some of those plush things Bluestreak is fond of to throw around and pretend to savage, and I can lock up half my joints and go lumbering around some sort of cityscape knocking block buildings over."

He stretched out across her, humming contentedly. "Or... oh, oh wait, I just had the very best idea. The BEST." Chortling, Steeljaw pushed his helm underneath Shadow's chin. "We can PAINT me. Black chassis, red forelimb, green forelimb, yellow and blue hindlimbs, horribly overlaid blaster ray effects out of my mouth - stop me when this sounds familiar..."

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Shadow huffed a laugh and thumped him lazily on the back of the helm. "No. Because if we paint you, you'll expect me to scrub it off, and I will hear no end of glitching about paint in your seams and what itches."

She paused, considering. "Though it would make fight scenes easier. I'm sure one of the humans could find an old Voltron lion. Or part of one. All we need is a foreleg to poke shrews with." Another brief silence. "Probably should get one of the kids to do the actual poking. I'm not sure either of us could hold something that small."

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"I might be able to hold it with a tool manipulator, but then we're getting into tentacles and THAT is an entirely different genre which we're not going to get into because Miko will kill us both in our recharge," Steeljaw replied. His optics were slitted shut, engine purring a quiet hum of contentment as he shoved his helm back into Shadow's hands, silently demanding more rubs along his audial bases. "And I will promise not to complain about the paint if you will promise to film the absolute WORST angles of me possible. Cheesy horror deserves no less."

It was easy to let himself go limp across Shadow's chassis, the thrum of his systems synched to hers in a sleepy rhythm that had his processor more than half powered down into first stage recharge. "If you help me scrub the paint off, you can pick the next three movie nights," he offered.

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"Bring tentacles into this, and Miko has every right to kill us," Shadow replied with a mildly disgusted optic roll and a definite sense of you would go there in her field. Obediently, she responded to the helm shoved into her servos with a few moments of careful attention to the micro-linkages at the base of each audial, then she skritched her way down across his neck and shoulders, finally rubbing thoughtful fingertips across the joints of his forelimbs.

"We could rig you up with oh-so-very-well-concealed wires," she said. "Turn you into a proper low budget special effect. If you're good, I'll even use glue instead of soldering them to you."

Steeljaw, stretched across her in a limp, contented sprawl, didn't so much as crack an optic at the suggestion. Shadow reversed direction, rubbing her way back up to his audials. "I'll paint you and help scrub the paint off, and you will watch the very worst Roger Corman movies with me for a week," she bargained. "Because no matter how much you promise not to complain now, I know what you're going to be like once you have paint actually gumming up your transformation seams."

[Deleted]

"I will suffer in the name of ART," Steeljaw replied, voice muzzy with first level shut-down, optics a barely lit slit. "And I will watch your ridiculous movies in the name of research because surely, anything humanity can do, we have the means and experience to do WORSE."

She was warm beneath him, nothing but living cybertronian metal under his plating and the subtle warmth of a spark and field against his own. Steeljaw let his optics cycle down entirely, tucking his faceplates against her collar. "We can be the next internet pop stars," he suggested, the sound half trailing off in the rumble of his engine. "They'll make memes after us.

[Deleted]

"You're already a meme, ceiling cat."

Shadow could feel Steeljaw settling into the liquid relaxation of impending recharge. She would have pointed out she was winning, except that seemed like too much effort, and Jaws was stubborn enough to reboot and resume grooming her into recharge if she did it.

"We need a YouTube channel," she said instead, taking advantage of the way his helm was tilted against her to loosen the micro-assemblies at the base of his neck. "If we let Miko set one up, I have no doubt she'll bring Fowler down on us in full bureaucratic wrath before we even get the first teasers uploaded."

[Deleted]

"I can set one up that Fowler's people will never trace to either of us," Steeljaw assured her absently. The motion of her fingers along his neck was sending his engine into idle; he vaguely thought he ought to protest, he had to finish polishing her, but slag it felt good and he hadn't had his neck worked over like that in far too long.

She wasn't getting up and moving, which was the important part. Steeljaw rumbled a low purr, venting warm puffs against Shadow's neck, his voice trailing off into pleased hums. "Just... remind me. ...Later."


(ooc - do we want to wrap this? Jaws ain't waking up. XD)

[Deleted]

And one symbiont, down for the count. "I win," Shadow said...quietly, so she wouldn't wake him and start the whole ridiculous competition over.

She stretched into a more comfortable position, still petting, and debated whether he was likely to remember the last part of the conversation. The part where he agreed to be painted was the most likely to be "forgotten", she decided, and set a note for herself to remind him. Frequently.

For now, though, she was trapped under a purring frame, with the worst of the damage to her finish repaired. Which was, she decided with a final shift into a more comfortable position, excuse enough to get some recharge herself.

<<fin>>