Ep0.5 - "What I Don't Need" - Closed

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Sideswipe was emptying the POS, stripping it, a process that was taking him days and should have taken him hours. They still had a functional ground bridge in this broken down piece of slag, good for nothing, hunk of the junk and Sideswipe would be damned before he left this tech for the Decepticons. At their last effort, he and Sunny had parked their ship’s fat ass in a region of Siberia, tucked deep into an otherwise inaccessible crevasse in the mountains – no human inhabitants for miles around and there they made the decision to kill the engine core and nix the risk of giving off any frequency bleed at all. It also scuttled the ship. It would never come back online again without a massive hardware repair.

Cleaver, of course, had offered to help him clear the junk heap but he’d told her not to. He didn’t want her in their ship, his and Sunstreaker’s ship, as it had become to them. This piece of slag had been their home of three decacycles now and their cage for three mega-cycles before that. This ship had sheltered and hid them. It had also gutted and stripped them raw. If the walls could carry the mark of the EM fields that twisted through her bulkheads it would have carried enough despair, enough agony to fracture a pair of hardcases like them… or at least one of them. Sideswipe shoved another footlocker of stuff toward the ground bridge, kicked it violently and set it hurdling through the warp tunnel into Cleaver’s ship.

Sideswipe was almost finished clearing the rec room. He’d put it off until last. Ex-venting hard, engines chirring with distaste, the commando stalked to the room – data mags on the foot table, energon cubes on the couch arm rests, the damn fucking Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night painting that Sunny did on the wall. That crease in the top where he ran out of room and continued it on the ceiling. Back on Cybertron, a rich-mech would have paid in proto-blood for the stuff Sunstreaker could do but he was too busy killing people. Sideswipe sighed, moved to the wall, pressed his knuckles into the wall and dropped his forehead against a blue and green-yellow whorl of paint in the bulkheads.

Sideswipe spent two hours cutting the painted metal out of the plates. They were the very last thing he dragged through the ground bridge into the control room, the painted metal sheet almost up to his throat it was so tall and half again as long. Sideswipe dragged the colorful metal sheet like a long carpet across the floor and finally laid it to rest among the rest of the accumulated junk he'd dragged inside. Then he sat there, crouched at the edge of it, optics down, fingertips running across the paint.

"Stupid," he muttered.

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There were bad ideas, there were horrible ideas, and then there were ideas so utterly glitched you bloody well deserved it when they blew up in your face.

Sneaking into the med-bay whilst Cleaver wasn't there to supervise fell squarely into the lattermost category- especially when said 'bay was occupied by a Primus-fragging ex-gladiator who'd earned every syllable of his 'Pitspawned' title the hard way- but he'd done it anyway, and renewed paranoia or no, the illicit glimpse had been worth it. Sunstreaker was every bit as awesome as his fanclub had insisted he was, brighter than his namesake star and twice as dangerous for all that he wasn't awake to wreak havoc. Saying he left an impression simply by existing was like calling the Arctic chilly.

Hunkering down at the edge of the mountain of junk stuff slowly filling the control room probably belonged in that much-hated 'you deserve what's coming to you, glitchwit' category too, but now, as so often before, Moonshot couldn't summon up an ounce of give-a-slag. He didn't know Sideswipe- had made a point of avoiding the Big Red Pain-in-the-aft since he'd discovered the wreck of metal and memories that was his brother, in fact- but no amount of callous disregard could dull down the sharp-as-shattered-glass edge of honest hurt all but filling the base. Sideswipe was a tougher-than-nails hardcase with more psychoses than most small armies, but he was still just a mech, a mech as capable of feeling things as anyone else was.

Damn Barricade and Cleaver both- if it weren't for them, for the conscience they'd beaten into him, Moonshot would've just walked away. Instead he sucked in a quick, steadying vent and plunged headlong into yet another Really Bad Idea.

"If it means something it isn't stupid."

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Sideswipe looked over his shoulder.

“Must be Moonshot,” he said, standing up and turning to face the little white-plated mech.

A brief up and down of him gave the Kaon-mech the impression that the little bright-plater was some kind of non-labor functionality model by the size and design of him. Too many layers of clean alloy covering none of the vital areas, too much under-mesh between the armor, not nearly enough armor to the armor and Sideswipe strongly suspected the mechanoids who commissioned his frame had been hell bent on something artistic with his frame type and artistry only came into play when a bot could afford it. If he was feeling mean, the once gladiator might have held that against him… but Moonshot sounded like a new spark to him, so he didn’t.

“Wasn’t talkin’ bout the painting. Talking about the painter, unless you think gettin’ your T-cog half torn out’s real fraggin’ meaningful, then I reserve the right ta call him stupid. I have experience in these matters. I’m fluent in stupidity.” Sideswipe tilted his head slightly. “Whatcha finally come out th' rafters for? Been almost two weeks I’ve been here an' ya haven’t said ‘hi’ yet. You get bored?”

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Fluent in stupidity, eh? Maybe this whole meet-and-greet wasn't such a terrible idea after all, then. At least he'd have someone familiar with such things around to mock him translate next time he shoved a pede halfway down his intake.

"The racket you were making was a little hard to ignore." Nevermind that the clatter and clash of miscellany scattering across the control room floor paled in comparison to the rock-shaking thunder of techno the rave-cave so often played host to. That was neither here nor there, entirely irrelevant to their current conversation, and certainly nothing the red bot eyeing him like some particularly loathed piece of avant garde artwork in need of smashing needed to know.

After all, anything he told Sideswipe was likely to be cheerfully thrown back in his face. With a fist for company, if his luck held.

"Figured I'd be pressing my luck a little too far too fast if I tracked you down right off the bat. Thought you could use some time to settle in, get comfy-" Recover from the shock of nearly losing half of you, you know- "-all that slag."

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“Well, I’m settled, mech. Don’t tip-toe around on account of me,” said Sideswipe, perfectly cavalier.

He moved to kneel down beside a footlocker near Moonshot’s right pede, keying a code into the touch pad at the top of the storage unit. He snapped it open and flipped the lock box lid, revealing a glowing blue row of energy cubes, ration-bricks, small enough to subspace and not take up room, concentrated dosage enough to last a long time in the field. The commando looked up from the glowing fuel stock – the lockbox being specifically shielded against giving off energon signature to anything but the most advanced systems. The glow made the alloy at his chest and face bright blue.

“Want one? Split it with ya. Just half’ll keep your lines fueled for six planetary months. Not pure-grade but it keeps you running. Feels nice too.” He grinned. “The Cons lace ‘em with medical-grade vibro-nanites ta take off th’ edge when you’re starving, but they give ya a rush if you’re healthy.”

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Somehow the thought of a mech like Sideswipe- somebot who radiated chaos and unsubtle threat the way a dying star threw off radiation- 'settling in' did precisely nothing to soothe Moonshot's paranoia. A deadly duo dropping in to lick their wounds and gather their strength was one thing, but them staying on, setting down roots... That was a possibility he wasn't quite ready to look in the face.

Thankfully there were more important things to worry about at that exact moment in time. Things like getting the frag away from that grasping hand. And, slightly-less vital but still quite necessary, giving those brighter-than-the-stars cubes a stare sour enough to curdle milk.

"...you really think that's a good idea?" Because every good triggerhappy glitchwit needs more energy, dontcha know.

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“My ideas,” said Sideswipe, subspacing one of the rations and cracking one open, “are always good.”

The mechanoid toasted his companion amicably, before downing a long swallow of the ration fuel. The electric slide of the medical nanites through his systems hit his higher processes almost immediately alleviating him of that prevalent clench of stress in the back of his spark. It wasn’t anything more than a buzz to the commado. He wasn’t running on a full tank or anything, but he was more than hale and healthy enough that the extraneous nanite infusion was doing his locked linkages some good and distilling a very welcome cool through his over-clocked sub-systems. Moonshot didn’t look convinced on this point however. Sideswipe arched a brow ridge at him before offering the opened ration cube.

“It ain’t gonna hurt ya, mech. Unclench an’ cycle it down a bit before you blow somethin’ and Cleave blames me for it. Besides, might as well settle down with it while I organize the rest of dis shit.”

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There were a thousand retorts he could make to that particular statement, most of which involved phrases akin to 'ideas like the one that got your brother slagged?' and all of which were likely to get him pounded flat in return. Painfully aware of Sideswipe's grating proximity and ability to exact bloody revenge if he misspoke, Shot settled for a noncommital 'hmm'. That carefully-neutral sound promptly turned into a blatted expletive the moment blown gaskets and Cleaver were brought into the equation. There were lines, fraggit, and accusations like that crossed them.

...But he was a sucker for challenges, and Sideswipe was fast turning this entire clusterfrag into just that. There was no way his pride- or his budding sense of self-preservation- would let him ignore a gauntlet so brazenly thrown down.

He accepted the cube with all the caution he would've afforded a bundle of explosives, sparing his red tormentor a look equal parts sour and sardonic. "Cleaver's known me long enough to place blame where it's due. If I'm dumb enough to go along with your ideas, maybe I deserve what I get."

Two seconds later he validated his own gloomy assertion, choking on his first tenative sip of energon. Some mechs, it seemed, were incapable of taking their own advice.

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“Yeeeeah” said Sideswipe, grinning, “good stuff ain’t it?”

It was entirely possible that the look on Moonshot’s face had just alleviated his otherwise soured mood and if there was anything that was true about Sideswipe in a bad mood it was that he wasn’t one to wallow in it. Moonie here was precisely the unfortunate distraction he’d been looking for.

The lambo-bot went back to picking up boxes and stacking the supply crates against the far wall where Cleaver might want the extra parts, tools, and everything that he’d been stripping out of the POS that could be repurposed for her base since Warcry had utterly slagged their ride beyond all likely fixing here on this planet. He’d be a month at least at breaking down the ship for parts and pulling it through the groundbridge, a just that would have been a few weeks of work with his brother – the two of them having been built for the deconstruction and building of things.

“So, mech…” Sideswipe dropped another crate on his growing stack. “Where you from? No place where ya ever had ta have military rations clearly.”

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"Mech, you've got one of the most fragged-up senses of good I've ever seen," Shot spluttered, optics threatening to bug out of his helm. "This stuff's like- I'm about ninety percent sure I could use that slag for solvent next time I frag up a solder job. Remind me again why you're willingly ingesting it?" A split-second pause, a sudden choke of terror, then- "-And why Cleaver lets you?"

And here we have the Nervous Glitchwit in his natural habitat: unconsciously shrinking away from the newest Possible Threat while spouting bluster meant to distract and/or dissuade. Neither seemed to be working as intended Primus fraggitall. Very well, then, onto distraction technique B-

-or, y'know, the Big Red Pain-in-the-Aft could turn around and distract him in retaliation. That worked too- worked so well, in fact, that Shot spent a good five seconds spluttering indignantly before he could even begin to work up a coherent, or appropriately scathing, reply.

"Take a long hard look at the sheer amount of decoration on my frame and say that again. Because I swear you just tried to imply somebot like me would survive for two nanokilks under military jurisdiction. Why do you care, anyway?"

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“Woooow, torque it down there, bright-spark.”

And here we have Sideswipe, also in his natural habitat; the rare and malicious lambo-bot – to the misfortune of his present company – being a species which feeds on bluster and nervous energy. So, he had just found in Moonshot an irresistible target for torment. Moonie being a delicate little tin-flower of a bot didn’t exactly help his standing with Sideswipe, who had pegged him a Towerling cept his accent was wrong. His grammar was too… sideways for straight Towers, had some of the signs of a mech constructed cold off world making him a possible colony-construct. About as Neutral as you could get without being a different species all together.

He turned around, his grin all side-slung and predatory as he hefted a crate up onto his shoulder and moved to confront the other bot.

“I don't care, actually, ‘cuz that’s basic conversational ‘Hi-how-are-ya’ stuff of th’ least threatenin’ caliber,” he said, his field throwing a wide net in the airwaves around him. “Ya got your fauld in a bunch over that, hell, I mighta said something genuinely offensive.” He leaned down, bringing his face very close to Moonshot’s. So close the glow of his optics reflected in the other mech’s facial plates. “Like asked ya how somebot like you survived two nanokilks during a war what’s killed millions of hard cases like me.”

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Ooooh, bad idea.

There were more downsides to living underground than Moonshot could easily tally up, most of which he'd already come to terms with, but there really was no escaping the fact that living in a cave meant being surrounded by particularly unforgiving walls. Normally they weren't a problem, something he could remain peripherally aware of and nothing more, but it was slightly harder to ignore just how solid walls were when you were all but pressed up against them with someone twice your mass and three times your volatility blocking your lone escape route.

Offlining his optics didn't make the iron weight of Sides' too-close field lessen, wouldn't magically make his latest bogeyman vanish back into the ether, but it steadied him just enough to grate out a tight reply.

"I d-don't know the answer to that either. Unless 'Primus is too busy making fun of me to kill me' works for you." Possibly the most accurate thing he'd said all day. Somehow that thought wasn't terribly reassuring. "I- back up, would you?" You're fritzing me the frag out, seriously, just... move, go, anywhere but HERE works-

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Sides looked the other mech up down, once: Optics, down, up to the optics again.

“So you’re a civvie.” He took a step back, then another, smirking at the other mechanoid long enough to watch the other bot’s knee’s perhaps threaten to buckle, before returning to what he was doing before. He stacked up another crate and shrugged. “No big. There’s plenty a those in the ‘verse or th’ Order a’ Solus wouldn’t have anything to do. Not that there any blade-class out here ta hold yur hand, are there, mech? Just Decepticons an’ Autobots rippin’ eachother apart plate by plate an' this lil patch’a dirt in th' middle of no where Megs’ called de-militarized. No takin’ inta account how many time he’s broken his word any number of times durin’ da course’a this war.”

Sideswipe wandered past the patch of wall Moonshot was still pinned against, pulsing a lazy flare of EMF at the other bot.

“Drink yur fuel, mech." He picked up another crate. "There’s a shortage or ain’t no one told ya?”