Ep1 - Rec. Room - 'Updates' - Closed

[Deleted]

<<OOC: Set after 'TLC' and just before 'Girly Chat'.>>

It was late on the continent, and Cleaver was trapped in the familiar state of being strut-tired and wide awake. The Base was quiet and nothing in particular was slated for the following day - television and some time with Cat, she believed. Sunstreaker was stable and settled in statis, Sideswipe was recharging next to him, Cat was either asleep or prowling the Internet, and Moonshot...

Moonshot she hadn't seen in a few days. Cat had said something about him making a 'rave room' in the deeper section of the converted mine, something that Cleaver hadn't known whether to take in jest or not. She'd left him to his mystery project to set up the Medbay and make the place comfortable as opposed to habitable, quietly glad that he was at least taking a break from the gun range.

Not wishing to disturb any of the other (blessedly quiet, right now) occupants with working, Cleaver left her quarters and made her way down to the long, tall corridors towards where Moonshot had settled. En-route, she sent a gentle ping of enquiry - though not so strong as to wake him out of recharge if he was actually doing what she outght to be herself.

[Deleted]

This was all Cat's fault.

She, after all, had been the first to mention the damnable phrase 'rave cave'. Repeatedly. . While oh-so-casually looking up lights, mirror-balls and myriad other devices for awesome-making/seizure-inducing. While smiling that thrice-befragged slag-sucking grin that Moonshot had come to associate with terrible happenings and challenges so great he simply couldn't ignore them.

Yes, it was entirely Cat's fault that he'd taken her at her word and turned one of the smaller cavelets adjacent to his quarters into a kandi kid's wet dream, and he was going to keep right on blaming her until he found a better excuse for his own bizarre behavior, because fessing up to rabid interest in human culture and technology was a blow his ego would not have survived.

Blame aside, the project had given him something to focus on that didn't inevitably lead to a case of the screaming heebie-jeebies. The rave cave, isolated, insulated and mercifully ignored, had firmly ingrained itself in his memory banks under the little-used subheading 'safe'. By rights the entire base should have belonged there- and the fact that he'd automatically classified the universe's lone DMZ as something to be wary of rankled deeply- but Certain Somethings made reclassification a nigh-impossibility. Three Somethings, actually, two of whom were red, two of whom were psychotic, and all of which reminded him just a little too keenly of everything that made him shake in his plates.

The ping hadn't originated with any of those Somethings, though, and Shot took some small solace in that as he clambered off the latest set of makeshift scaffolding and returned the hail with what passed for a chipper greeting where Moonshot was concerned. He'd hoped to introduce Cleaver to his 'secret project' when it was rather closer to completion, but... well, there was only so much paint-splatter any mech could be expected to let slide, and he'd passed that critical point four buckets and three layers of dust ago. Best to stop her at the door, then, and trot out an explanation before anyone got the wrong idea.

"Uh... Hi. I can explain."

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Cleaver came to a stop and arched a thick brow at that, setting one blade into the ground like a cane and leaning heavily into it. Moonshot appeared... dishevelled, in so much as a robotic lifeform could seem as such, and his field pulsed an awkward sort of anxiety in time with the spark spinning under his dirty chassis. It felt rather like catching a sparkling amidst or just outside the scene of a mini disaster zone. Usually involving rust sticks, gummies and a broken jar.

"Oh well now I have to see what you've been buried back here doing."

[Deleted]

Open mouth, insert pede.

"It isn't finished yet," The once-white mech yelped, cramming a small dictionary's worth of surprise, horror and please-don't-hurt-me-I'm-on-your-side-no-really into the words. "Half the lights aren't synched up yet and the ceiling's still bare primer and the blacklights haven't been installed and-"

The Look on Cleaver's face, not terribly dissimilar from the Unamused Glower his creators had once used to silence rebellious youngling protests, shut him up more effectively than a smack to the side of the helm.

"...Uh. Rave-cave. Wanted somewhere I could blast tunes without torquing you off and... got a little carried away."

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The medic perked up a little at that, rotors shifting beneath the high mount on her shoulders. That was... remarkably considerate of the rather impulsive and easily excitable mech, and her field pulsed out a brief wave of approval as Cleaver straightened and took a step forward. "Sounds interesting, and far more agreeable than another weapon's project."

She hadn't checked to see if Cat's truck was still intact lately, though she hadn't heard (and it doubtless would have been inescapable) their human tennant shouting over the explosive loss of her vehicle...

Seeing that Moonshot was still plate-fidgeting nervously, Cleaver offered a small smile. "I've never seen a dedicated music room like you're describing - can I take a look?"

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Blinkblink. Blinkstare.

"...you mean you don't mind?" Not quite what he'd meant to say, and certainly not how he'd meant to say it- really, where had that unique blend of slack-jawed shock and wild glee come from?- but it got the job done well enough. "I mean- I didn't think you would or I wouldn't have made it, but-"

Oh, right. Showing off his masterpiece-in-the-making meant muting his traitorous vocalizer and moving. About that.

The rave-cave wasn't a thing like the composition rooms of old, lacked all the contraptions and technology Moonshot had once been accustomed to, but no amount of forced simplicity could hide the thought that had gone into the sanctuary-within-a-sanctuary's creation. The walls were scarcely recognizable as stone, ground flat and hidden behind layers of dark paint that gleamed with oil-spill iridescence. Black silhouettes of towers and arches and less-identifiable structures that defied every law of physics simply by existing stood stark against that nebulous background, mute testament to the skill of their long-ago builders. Smaller forms- Seekers and aerialists and one or two who bore more than a passing resemblance to Cleaver- flocked across the ceiling, wings dark against the glittering light of tiny LED 'stars'.

Moonshot had never seen Iacon's skyline or its skydances either, but that didn't mean he couldn't pay homage to them.

"It's... it isn't much. Nothing like what I want it to be, of course, but it's a start."

[Deleted]

Cleaver had approached the most completed wall whilst Moonshot stood anxious and verbally fumbling, skating the tip of a blade over the outline of achingly familiar Cybertronian architecture without quite making contact with the wall. Her optics tracked up to the ceiling and found familiar constellations amongst the pinprick lights - some not known to this world, but known to her spark as the shapes of light she'd flown beneath when their homeworld had been whole and healthy.

"It's wonderful," she murmured, not looking at the artist as she took in his creation. It was beautiful and strangely haunting, the atmosphere that of a world lost to them now. One that the sparkling, quite possibly the first of a new generation for their dwindling race, would never know.

It occured to her, with no small degree of awkward embarrassment, that she hadn't actually told Moonshot about the sparkling. In her defence, between the Twins' dramatic arrival and the fact that the Neutral sniper was rarely seen within the massive base, there hadn't been the right opportunity to tell him of the life being manufactured beneath her plates.

But then, she conceded, there was never a 'right' time to disclose such a thing.

Dragging her wandering optics from the dark walls and twinkling ceiling, Cleaver set a blade into the smoothed floor and met his inquiring gaze. "By any chance, has Cat told you about the new arrival on its way?"

[Deleted]

It wasn't the light-show of longwave glee he'd half-sparkedly hoped for, but coming from Cleaver- someone as infamous for keeping her cool as, well, as Sideswipe was for annoying the slag out of everyone- that soft sound of appreciation was the highest form of praise.

It was also the best fragging reason Shot had heard all orn to cover every other wall he could get his grubby little servos on in 'pritty pikturz', but that was beside the point. Congratulations, Cleaver. You just created an artistic monster.

"...If you're telling me that big red bot's moving in I'm gone. So gone." Or so he said. His glyph-choice- all but buzzing with curiosity and a perhaps-inordinate amount of glee, because really, who doesn't like mysteries, especially of the rare and elusive Cleaver variety?- rather invalidated his carefully-dubious tone. "That- uh. That isn't what Cat was supposed to tell me, was it?"

[Deleted]

Cleaver's helm twitched in the negative, quiet as she left room for Moonshot to run his glossa on a bit more as he tended to. When he reverted to almost-patiently-waiting silence, she twisted her blade in a slow quarter-circle in the ground. Not a nervous fidget. Just, thoughtful...

Cat had thus far been the only other she'd told face-to-face about the sparkling who'd not made it difficult in some way. Ironhide, bless him, just couldn't comprehend it - a result of his function, culture and class. He'd been happy from the first instance, undoubtedly, but the only handle he could find on the whole self-generation process was a quasi-magical one that left him hovering anxiously.

Sideswipe had been a willfully obnoxious aft about it, falling into old mechanisms of throwing up fears and threats as a shield between him and what he couldn't absorb. Had torn a deep strip of her in the process that was only just hardening over again, but his swearing to protect her and the bitlet had gone a long way to help.

Where on the scale between giddy awe and stupified aggression Moonshot would fall was a mystery. And not one that would be solved by her dithering in his 'rave cave'.

"No, Ironhide is staying right where he's supposed to be - with the Autobots in their base. Visiting rights only, though this is connected to 'big red', " Cleaver replied with a wry smile. A pause, another twist of the blade back and forth. "I'm a self-generator - can make sparklings without the Core. Making one right now. And, that's it. Thought Cat might've 'squeeed' at you, or however she puts it."

[Deleted]

Click. Clickwhirr.

The list of things Moonshot didn't know and didn't want to could fill a half-dozen libraries to overflowing, but some things- music, speech, emotion- didn't require conscious thought to be understood. This- this blow to the psyche, this statistical improbability wrapped in an impossibility, this tiny, personal miracle that changed everything and nothing for everyone- was one of them. He didn't understand the details, the whys or the wherefores, but he understood just enough to react.

And that was precisely why Shot clicked through a dozen vocalizer-resets before burying Cleaver in the world's most cautious bearhug, squeaking what might've been incoherent glee along the way.

[Deleted]

...This must be what 'squeeing' is. Well... Ah. Right....

Somewhat awkwardly, though smiling all the same, Cleaver patted a blade across Moonshot's back. The neutral sniper was chirping basic and outright nonsensical sounds across vocaliser, field and inter-comm. frequencies, overlaying into a musical harmony that both said nothing and communicated clearly his reaction.

Words, admittedly, would have been easier to respond to. Certainly she hadn't been expecting this...

"Glad you're happy, 'Shot," Cleaver finally replied, incidentally into the white mech's audio where he was snuggled in so close.

It was good to feel him so elated - Moonshot was so cripplingly nervous and shy as a baseline. The displaced anxiety integral to his nature would return eventually, however, and she held a blade to him with a warm pulse of her field as she laid the groundwork to assuage them. "Know it's a surprise, and dangerous even in a DMZ, but the bitlet won't bring anything down on you."

[Deleted]

Some distant, disinterested part of Moonshot's processor- the .05 percent not busy spinning in circles and yipping joyous nonsense, that is- was ready to die of shame. He was an ironclad touch-me-not, after all, a mechanism more likely to shoot somebot than to latch onto them and refuse to let go, and yet here he was, all but plastered across some poor unsuspecting femme's chassis and entirely, violently opposed to the idea of letting go.

If Sideswipe ever got wind of this he'd never hear the end of it, but Primus, it felt nice. Felt safe.

...Forget Sideswipe never forgiving him, if this kept up Cleaver would never forgive him either, and that would simply Not Do.

"It's a sparkling," He pointed out, reluctantly peeling himself off the chopper's midsection. "Not- not some weapon that's gonna do us all in. It's something to be celebrated, right? I mean, I can run around yelling about the end of the world as we know it if you want, but... I'd rather be happy, if that's alright?"

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"Be grateful for it, actually."

She'd said it immediately, genuinely, and her field washed affectionate gratitude in turn. If as a species they became unable to perceive a coming sparkling with happiness and hope, then the war had truly destroyed them, and they didn't deserve another generation. Mixed reactions she could understand, and pragmatically, even Sideswipe's heated and aggressive response to the news made sense.

This though, Cleaver thought, the glow coming off of Moonshot's frame, felt pre-war in its clarity.

He'd put some space between them, now, and Cleaver huffed through her vents with a minute fidget of her pedes. Back to normal. The femme cast her optics around the room again, and a second look didn't depreciate the beauty of what she saw one bit. "So, is this room going to be just your space, or will others be welcome? I imagine Cat would really like it."

[Deleted]

"Depends on a bunch of things. How quick I can get this all finished, how good a job I did on the soundproofing, how quick I can get some tunes worth playing- or write 'em, if I have to- how hard Sides laughs at my attempt at art... all that good slag."

He was, he realized belated, gamboling, meandering in careless little circles that inevitably spiraled right back into the wash of warmth and- Primus help him- affection that was Cleaver's field. It was the sort of half-clocked ploy a sparkling might attempt, a 'look-at-me' so overt it made him cringe, but he'd be fragged if he could convince his pedes to knock it off. Around and around he orbited, finally- finally!- halting just behind and to one side of Cleaver to volley off the question that threatened to throw all his half-sparked careful plans straight into the Pit.

"So. Uh. How long until the-" Miracle? Statistical impossibility? The frag do I call this thing that isn't 'hope for the future' or something equally corny?!- "-little bot gets here?"

[Deleted]

Cleaver tracked Moonshot's delighted little wander about the room by optic only, electing not to pirouette for the sake of watching the young bot. She did turn fractionally to face him again when he finally stood still, though his field was still a fluttering mix of stray emmissions and multi-wave emotions.

"My best guess is about nine weeks. It's, not an exact science," she added with a wry smile, though chose not to bore him with the details. Energon charge quality, mineral supplements, system efficiency - Ironhide had the fussing of all that well in hand, though she was perfectly capable of managing it herself.

The femme cast her optics around the room again, over the familiar skylines and constellations mapped out in lights. "I doubt that Sideswipe would laugh at this, by the way. It's his sort of thing."

And he knows better than to torque me off.