Ep. 0.5 - Gone Visiting - Open

[Deleted]

Catherine automatically raised her hands to Cleaver, as if to imply not it, before going back to her magazine, so far unaware of any glyphs being tossed around or any issue with the familiarity between Jazz and Cleaver. Until she felt the weight beneath her shift backwards, looking up in time to find Jazz and Cleaver's distance had changed as Sideswipe settled into his backwards step and felt her balance shift when he crossed his arms.

Not followed by any sort of remark to Cleaver's entrance or Jazz's own response.

She hadn't known the mech long (hard to believe some days, much like today, right now), but up here on her perch it felt a bit uneasy. She left her nose in her magazine, though, offering up a small comment. "Oooh, pitfalls, those sound important." Barely preventing the slip to add 'fun' to that sentence.

[Deleted]

Something odd had flickered from Sides' direction against Jazz's EMF for a klik, but then Jazz had stepped forward and Sides had stepped back and Cleaver was there and Jazz's look back had shown Sides to be nonchalantly playing a game like nothing had happened. Jazz had mentally shrugged and let it go. This was Sideswipe. If it was important, it'd come up again.

The Twins were many things, but shy about expressing themselves was not one of them.

Jazz had concentrated on giving Cleaver a hard time and getting the skinny on this mall trip that sounded like pure and utter hilarious disaster in the making. Jazz had said as much and Cleaver had rolled her optics and Jazz had grinned as they switched gears to discuss the security upgrades she wanted.

<<Figured I'd give Sides and Cat another round to poke at each other before Jazz comes back over.>>

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“Do ya know how fraggin’ deep you’d have ta dig a pit-fall for dat ta’ be even slightly a deterrent ta most Cybertronians?”

Sideswipe did not look up from his game, the lights and holo flashing merrily between his hands. Blue optics flicked briefly in Cat's direction.

“Like three stories deep, an' most combat frames got th' hydraulics ta just jump triple their own height. I can. There is a reason we racer models like doing unnecessary flips an’ that ain’t even talkin’ flight models – it’s cuz we can, fam. You should see some of th' footage I got. You met Arcee? From Team Prime? She got bare flips an’ gymnastics for days. Nah, you want turrets. Pure artillery.”

[Deleted]

"You could… like, have a steel door shut up top. Or something. Spikes and stuff.." Cat added absently, her thoughts clearly split. She turned a page in her magazine, barely flicking her eyes towards Sideswipe before briefly reflecting on whether or not her old man crushes on Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis were creepy.

But she turned her attention to Sideswipe completely soon after, letting the magazine wilt in her lap. "You should show me sometime." She shifted her weight to one side, leaning on that same hand to better peer around and down at the game's screen. "I'm thinkin' dairy queen movie niiiight…" And gave a few small taps with her fingers to serve as a playful nudge. "Whatchya think?"

[Deleted]

Jazz said good-bye to Cleaver, ushered her on her way back to the medbay, and huffed as he nudged Sideswipe. "Hey, if she doesn't let me have lasers, she's not letting you have artillery. S'just not gonna happen. Guess I'm gonna have to settle for wiring this place up so hard whoever's monitoring your feeds'll hear the worms in the walls."

"Do you guys HAVE anybody to monitor all this stuff I'm checkin' out?" He squinted at Sideswipe. "You're gonna try and steal my base cat, aren't you? Don't make me pull out the heavy guns. I got warm baths and a detailing kit and a pillowroom complete with IR heating, and I'm not afraid to use 'em."

Jazz made a lazy grab at Sideswipe's game.

[Deleted]

Sideswipe immediately and amicably elbowed the saboteur away from his game, but despite his valiant attempt at not letting Jazz ruin it, his finger slipped on one of the buttons and triggered a series of vertexes. The game whirred and flashed brightly at him and his score dropped instantly and dramatically, triggering the mother of all sour-face doom-glowers that the ex-gladiator could manage without doing his face longterm damage. Sideswipe immediately decided to blame Cat for distracting him with her tapping and threats of Dairy Queen when he should have been fending off Jazz attacks.

“Ain’t stealin’ no cats, bruv. Got my own.” He shrugged the shoulder Cat was sitting on, hoping to wobble the little smart-ass a little bit before he swapped into sudden Italian, glowering down at her. “And I’m not letting you stuff your face with ice-cream in my cab, shortstack. If you want Dairy Queen you can walk or better yet, just have Cleaver order you ice cream on the internet or something. I’m sure she will actually do that… and sign you up for a subscription.”

Sides pointedly didn't look where Cleaver had gone. //So...// The comm was silent, short-hand Kaonese glyphs. Blue optics flicked to Jazz. //Adopting more cohort, huh?//

Aloud he said, "Ya pull a Rattrap an' put cams in th' ranks and I'll pure wreck ya. Get me?"

[Deleted]

"'Ey!"

She flailed her hands out to grasp at his shoulder, her boots bracing up higher to steady herself. An over reaction.. maybe.. but it put her in a good position to raise that foot and whack it down on his plating in retaliation. It made her feel like she'd done something at least…

"Fine! Jeez, I'll get it from the fridge, grumpy-face." She threw up her hands defensively as if to turn the glower on another target, before turning her attention to resettling the magazine in her lap. And after a short pause, added casually: "Your cat is fucking epic, by the way."

<< Seems like Jazz and Sides are about to discuss some details (with the exception of Cat's inserted snark) so feel free to skip Cat if it makes more sense. <33 >>

[Deleted]

Jazz raised his hands at Sideswipe. "Hey, I got ya. You'd not believe what I've had to go through to get RID of the spycams around the base. Be happy if I never see another one again."

His field blinked a bit with the realization that Sideswipe didn't know. Last they'd talked about cohort had been after Jazz had been kidnapped into Chromia's cohort. Sides had nearly laughed himself silly. ::Yeah. For once, it's not my fault! Honest. She and Ironhide have a thing. A very...sudden-but-good thing. And she's a really classy mecha, so ey, yeah, cohort.:: Jazz projected a flurry of happy EM, the equivalent of "eee, isn't it cool?".

He tipped his helm at Cat and said, "He will be highly offended if I don't say that he is not MY cat. However, he IS fucking epic, I will give you that. Best base cat ever, and no foolin' there! Can't wait to see what he's been up to over here, really."

[Deleted]

“Fam, you fuck my paint an’ we’ll be havin’ more’n words,” said Sideswipe, shooting an elaborate glare at Cat and her stomping boots. “Didn’t pick a lambo-frame for th’ off-road capabilities, twip. Watch da finish or aint gonna let you hang out in my bar an’ meet no one.”

Cat’s stomping on his shoulder was rewarded by his reaching up and cupping his hands around her like one might try to quiet a cantankerous parakeet. Like most attempts to mock-quiet his human friend, it would likely have the opposite effect entirely and only up the volume of her protests and though Cat might have been unaware, the exceptionally gentle and controlled gesture might have said something in and of itself about how Sides regarded the little alien.

Meanwhile, silent and unseen in Cybertronian shortwave: Sideswipe’s reaction to Jazz’s happy whirr, was a dead zone flux in his EMF.

//She tell you she Towers? Cuz, I was barely flexin’ a new frame when she first showed up puttin’ my parts back ta’gether in Slaughter City. Known her almost long as I known you. Didn't know she was Towers 'til, ya know, few days ago. Didn’t know Towers was ‘classy’, either. When’s that been a thing? Towers bein’ ‘classy’?// Sides shot Jazz a kind of bewildered, perhaps frightened look, that last bit there and gone so fast, buried under a kind of Sunstreaker-flash of hostile it was easy missed. //Towers dig out yur spinal strut an’ shove bits an’ pieces inside. Towers tell you you ain’t got a name, ain’t got a right ta cohort, ain’t got a place if you aint sparked in th' Eye'aPrimus… then they pay self-gens to spark pretty one-offs for em’ an’ spit in that Eye.//

Sides tilted his head and for a minute his brother was in the room. //Or you mean she ain't Towers?//

[Deleted]

Whoa whoa whoa, mayday! THAT had been a big hole to step in unawares. Rather like the pit-traps Cat had liked.

Cat, who was out of sight at the moment, cupped under Sides' hands. Almost like Sideswipe'd done that on purpose.

Jazz stepped in, well aware (like usual with the twins) that he was flying by the plates of his aft, and pulled Sideswipe's helm down to his own, pressing their forehelms together.

::Meant that she's CLEAVER. Meant that shes 'classy' as in smart and loving and kind and got this dignity about her. And yeah, I know she was Towers. I only met her a few months ago, Sides, and at that point she'd told Ironhide. Don't know everything about her, but I know that she is not the Towers. She's not any of the slag we hated. She's Cleaver, and she always will be. Don't lose sight of that. Don't give up on her for what she USED to be. We've all been other things, mech, and I don't want to be judged on what I used to be anymore than she or you do.::

Jazz clunked his forehelm against Sideswipe's gently in emphasis. ::Sorry if she surprised you, Sides. But she's still there for ya. 'n so'm I. 'n so's Cat, if ya haven't ticked her off too bad.:: Because Jazz had a feeling that that was part of it, too: Sideswipe, half of a whole, here on his own and then finding out something like that? Musta rocked the shaky foundation more than a little.

Another forehelm tap, followed by support-affection.


<<Jazz'll also likely go for a hug if Sides seems steady enough for it. ;P Feel free to puppet the hugging, if appropriate.>>

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Sideswipe had to stop himself from putting a fist into Jazz’s sidevents, some reactive trigger in his head going off violent in the base-code of his frame…Then killed fast at the feeling of hands hooking up under and behind the place where his jaw met the alloy of his audio-guard, pulling him forward into easy cyber-harmonic sync. It might have not been intentional on Jazz’s part, to take the gesture and inhabit it where Sunstreaker might have not so long ago. Sides reacted, for a moment, instinctively – relaxing into it, optics closing a moment because for a blind minute that felt like being whole…

And then Jazz hugged him.

His twin was a lot of things: a hugger wasn’t one of them.

“I knew her ‘fore you or Ironhide,” said Sideswipe, code-switching to audible Kaonese, hard and crude. Sub-sonic slang, click-whirrs and reversed phonetics, raw as the refuse tunnels out of Dead End, static-laced and purely Cybertronian. Angry wavelengths rose ugly off his frame, shivering cold between them. He dropped one hand, used it to push Jazz back to arm’s length; not hard, but set him back a step, then another. His other hand he kept up, like he was protecting Cat from something, even if it was just seeing his face for that moment when he glared at Jazz.

//Knew her back when she was pullin’ subcutaneous neural-circuits outta dying Pit mechs,// he said, going back to silent glyphs again.// Knew her long enough that I thought I knew her some, then it turns out I didn’t. You known her a human month. Yur mech ‘Hide known her a couple months an’ change. Suddenly she cohort? She fight a war with you? She some Order a Solus freak found her Code? You tell me why you think she worth trustin’. Because that femme… I don’t know what she is or what she’s been, but I know every Tower bot ever came down from Translucentica, Iacon or whatever… Kaon-spark don’t trust that.// Sideswipe didn’t mean to sound so bewildered, staring at Jazz like he looked different.// Don’t know why you so quick to it…”

He switched to English. “And you scratch my paint,” he said, dropping his hand from Cat, “an’ I’ll put a proper dent in you.”

[Deleted]

Jazz's plates clamped down at that angry-wave. Frag, but he felt out of sorts here. There was all kinds of slag floating just beneath the surface here, and Jazz wasn't certain he saw all of it. Still, he let Sideswipe put space between them, optics not looking anywhere else than Sides' face as angry slag poured out his vocalizer.

Listen. Hear. Then shear the top layer off and see what was crawling inside.

Anger. Hurt. Betrayal. The Twins' own tendency to lash out in self-defense. And an old, deep hatred that Jazz remembered, that Jazz still CARRIED, though he'd twisted it and buried it hard. Caged it in with new rules about who was and was not responsible for all the slag he'd gone through in Kaon and before. Rules that evidently the Twins had never had to make for themselves.

For a moment, Jazz was tempted to push back. This could turn into a fight real easy, and Sideswipe was practically spoiling for one, but this was more than that. This was Sideswipe spoiling for a fight because he didn't know what else to do with himself. Because "when in doubt, punch it" was practically the Twins' motto.

And besides, Cat didn't need to see that.

Jazz let himself settle back on his pedes so as to appear at ease to human eyes. Then he smashed his own instinctive reaction to defend his cohort, because this was so very obviously not about him, and Sideswipe was not ready to deal with it.

It was always such a balancing act in his head, trying to find the right thing to say. It made him tired sometimes, really.

Jazz's field flared worry and bewilderment of his own, with a firm base of inquiry. ::I'm quick to it because that's how my cohort runs, Sides. By the time I heard of it, it was kinda a done deal. Hide loves her as much as he loves me or Chromia, and he's got code in that sparkling. That bitlet's going to be OURS-cohort-inclusive-possessive, same as Bluestreak, and Cleaver, well...I like her. Yeah, she used to be Towers, but right now she's just doin' her best to put mechs back together when lots of mechs'd want to tear her apart, and I gotta respect that. She, personally, hasn't done anything to hurt me or mine, and that's what matters to me.::

He pushed out a wallop of support. ::Understand if you feel different. Understand if you don't trust her. She lied to you. She's still my cohort, though, same as Chromia and 'Hide. Doesn't have to change anything between you'n me, though, 'less you decide it does.::

[Deleted]

Sides’ hand, the one opposite Cat, the one at his side, shook he was clenching it so hard. His expression though, when he shot Cat a lazy ‘whatcha-gonna-do-about-it’ smirk, was lazy and easy going as anything he could manage. Though whether he was fooling Cat was anyone’s guess.

//She aint Blue or Chrome,// snapped Sideswipe, angry with the comparison. //Chromia’s a Bot run with Hide for eons. Bluestreak: new spark. Dat one-off Cleaver’s generatin’: they clean too. That don’t apply ta a Towers femme made her living off the Pit fights in Kaon. There’s a whole history there worth bein’ suspicious of. That’s what I’m sayin’. Her generatin’ a new spark don’t absolve nothin’ an’ don’t give a pass on nothing. Kid’s clean. Her? I don’t know what she is on account’a her lyin’ ‘bout it. It ain’t you’n me I’m glitch-frakkin’ worried ‘bout, it’s you.//

He looked at Jazz, “You think I’m joking?” he said in English, all lazy and conversational. “Scuff my paint an’ I’ll scuff yur face, fam.”

//IYou an’ Hide are throwin’ all this trust in dis femme who aint ever been straight. You don’t know who she been. You don’t know what you lettin’ in yur cohort an’ yur okay with it? Your Prime teach ya dat? He teach you trust aint earned? You just give it away?// He flashed refusal/no/never. //Make her cohort for th’ kid, but don’t ya tell me ya trust her. How can ya trust her? You don’t know her. Your cohort adopting strays: dat’s yur and yours. But cohort don’t make ya trust worthy. Plenty’a brothers killin’ brothers all war, I seem ta remember.//

[Deleted]

Jazz felt like he was dodging flak in a fight, trying to let most of it pass him by. It was no use arguing with Sides that he didn't need to worry. It was no use arguing that Cleaver had, obviously, had a ton of reasons to keep her origins a secret lest she get torn apart in Kaon or turned into a sparkling-generator afterwards. Stubborn fragger was stubborn, and he was scattershotting, shooting half a dozen different fears all at once. Even if Jazz COULD soothe one of them, the others would just pipe right up to keep cadence.

Not to mention he kinda felt like he was talking to Shadow's mouthier, angrier older brother, having to describe what the frag cohort MEANT. Because Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had never had cohort beyond each other. Never had to feel out someone else through the filter of someone else you loved being in love with them. And trying to explain that their trust issues were not everyone else's trust issues was...yeah, not worth the ventilations to say it. Instead, Jazz quick-waved his reply, even as Cat was still working up a response.

::Sides. You're not tellin' me anything I don't already know. I know you're worried, and I know you're pissed. You got every right to be. But Cleaver was part of the cohort almost before I even got here, and that is a done deal. Not known her long, true. Don't know everything about her, true, n' ya know what I'm doin' 'bout that? I'm gettin' to know her so I can make my own decision. But beyond that, she is STILL COHORT. It's just the way my cohort works, and if you wanna call me glitched for it, s'fine. But I want you to remember that this is ME you are talking to here. You think I don't keep an optic on everyone comes near my cohort? You think I'm not watching over all of us? I AM, mech. I am and I always do. I watch out for them, and for myself, and for YOU, you stubborn fragger, and it is YOU that I'm fragging worried about. Didn't like the thought of you here by yourself to begin with. Now? Like it even less, 'n it downright WORRIES me, Sides. Not gonna leave you to deal with this slag on your own. So tell me what I can do.::

He burst here-support-posse-dedication into the maelstrom of Sides' field. ::Just tell me.::

[Deleted]

//Nothing you can do. Sunstreaker’s fragged.//

Like that explained everything and, really, it did. It explained everything.

Because he wanted someone to ‘get it’ and perhaps that was unkind of him considering that – with exception of one mech in the verse – no one would ever ‘get it’ and he was comatose on a circuit slab and being mad at Jazz for not being half the Kaon-sparked gutter-snipe Sides needed to talk to wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t Jazz’s fault everyone worth talking to was dead, slagged, lost, or joined the Cons. It wasn’t Jazz’s responsibility to get why Sideswipe – pit-mech, commando, half-of-a-whole, gutterspark – felt strongly about one of the few figures he trusted turning out to be, quite literally, one of the few things in the universe he couldn’t stand.

Sideswipe wasn’t so fluid as Jazz, who was so fluid as to have no definable shape what so ever and it pissed him off. It pissed him off that Jazz wasn’t mad too, that he didn’t take sides, that he switched sides so easy. It pissed him off no one knew about the criss-cross mess of familiarity and loathing in his spark – that he still wanted to trust Cleaver, but he couldn’t because what she had been was relevant to every line of hatred built into him from the ground up.

He wanted to trust her because he was alone, not because she deserved it. And that pissed Sideswipe off most of all.

//Don’t fraggin’ worry about it. I’ll fix it myself.// Somehow.