shadow_vector | Uninvited Guest

G
Bayverse (toys only)
Mindwipe, Skystalker, Sunspot
no warnings, other than a really unhappy Skystalker
Sunspot doesn't want to recharge in his 'big boy' bed. ;_;

For

tf_speedwriting advent calendar, prompt 'guest'

Stalker’s optic onlined abruptly, sensing something…like someone staring at him. Someone…annoying. It was the middle of the fraggin’ recharge cycle, and both parts of him were draped over Mindwipe’s chassis, enveloped in the warm fuzz of the larger bomber’s EM field, and more importantly, his solenoids. They fuzzed the memory just enough that everything felt delightfully muzzy and a little vague, like being slightly, happily overcharged. It felt…nice. No pain, no awkwardness, no memory.

He wondered, briefly, if that’s what it was like to be Mindwipe.

But more immediately.

Yes. The dim red-black optic of Sunspot peering at them from between two small claws hooked over the edge of the berth.

“What?” Stalker croaked.

“Hi!” Sunspot said. “It’s recharge time!”

“Yes,” Sky groaned from the far side of Mindwipe’s broad frame. “Which would be why we’re recharging.”

“Or trying to,” Stalker amended.

“Can I recharge with you?”

“NO!” they snapped. “You go recharge…over there.” Stalker waved vaguely toward what had been their berth.

Sunspot’s wings drooped. “But it’s lonely over there.”

“We’re right here. Not lonely.”

Sunspot didn’t move. “You look really comfy. Is it comfy to sleep on a big mech?”

Uhhhhh. Stalker blinked his optic. He was not anywhere near awake enough to field that question.

Mindwipe shifted under them, one arm wrapping cautiously over Stalker’s hipframe. “Sunspot,” he said, as his recharge-bleared HUD fed him a name.

“HI!” Sunspot repeated. He waved one claw eagerly. Oh frag, not this again. “I’m lonely! Can I recharge with you?”

Well, at least Mindwipe got the executive summary.

“I don’t see why no—ow!” Mindwipe winced as Sky pinched him.

“He can sleep on his berth. Like a real grown-up droneling.”

Sunspot had taken Mindwipe’s statement as acceptance, and was clambering up onto the berth, the toes of one foot scrambling for purchase on the berth’s slick surface, wings fluttering.

“Mindwipe. Memory? You think he needs to have his cortex fritzed? Even more than it is?” Sky snapped, but then twitched. He didn’t mean it in any bad way, like that Mindwipe was, you know, bad or something.

“Oh.”

“Get off,” Stalker said, pushing at the toe that was inching closer to his face. “And clean your feet better.” Gross.

“I don’t know how to do that!” Sunspot said, cheerfully. “Can you teach me?”

“Not right now,” Sky said. “It’s recharge time.”

“I know!” Another flutter of the wings and some scrabbling claws and Sunspot stood triumphantly on the berth. “Recharge time!” He squatted, wiggling his yellow aft before pouncing onto Stalker. “Recharge time recharge time recharge time!” He wrapped his skinny arms around Stalker’s backframe, nuzzling between his wings, while his own floated happily at random.

“It’s recharge time,” Mindwipe confirmed, drowsily. “Oh, hi, Sunspot.”

No, Stalker fumed, trying to wrestle his way free from the surprisingly strong skinny little arms. Not ‘oh hi, Sunspot’. This was Skystalker’s special recharge thing. Where they occasionally did stuff. Not-for-dronelings stuff. “Go sleep on your berth!” Stalker snarled. Sky got up and started yanking on Sunspot’s wings. “Get. Off!”

“But it’s LONELY over there!” Sunspot wailed, clutching at anything he could grab, including one of Mindwipe’s bracers. “And, and, and….I miss my rack!”

“Well, go back to it, then, you stupid drone!”

Mindwipe’s voice was his usual calm, neutral. He’d retrieved something from his hard data. “Drones sleep in very close physical contact in deca-racks. Being separated from that is probably…distressing.”

“So? Let him be distressed. Gotta grow up some time.” Sky braced his feet better, hauling at the wings. Sunspot howled, claws digging into Stalker’s armor.

“None of us are recharging right now,” Mindwipe pointed out, reasonably. His red visor blinked. “It won’t do any harm just once.”

“But it won’t be just once,” Sky countered, but he released his grip on the white-and-yellow wings. Sunspot burrowed against Stalker, gripping with his feet around the black thighs. “It’ll be tomorrow, and the next night and the next night and….”

“Just like with you?” The voice was mild, amused. Frag. Perfect time for Mindwipe to get something in his long-term memory.

“Different. And we do…stuff.” Stalker turned his head to glare at the droneling snugged against his backframe. “Or used to.”

“We can.” Mindwipe shifted his other arm, tapping at the dormant induction node above his visor. “We can put him into recharge for that.”

From anyone else, the suggestion would sound at least a bit sinister—knocking someone out for interfacing. But somehow it just seemed…Mindwipe. Completely benign. Easy solution that made everyone happy.

Sometimes Skystalker wondered why the other mechs were so creeped out by the bomber. Once you got over the ‘forgetting everything’ thing, he was actually…nice. Which might be the creepy factor right there: ‘nice’ was not a common Decepticon trait.

But right now, there was just no winning for Skystalker. Between the droneling’s chirring clutching and Mindwipe’s simple logic, he was outmatched. “Fine,” he said, dropping the droneling’s wings. “Fine.” Sky turned back to flop down where he’d been before.

“Don’t like being on the end,” Sunspot mumbled, pathetically.

Seriously? Fine. There was one way they were going to get to recharge tonight and that way spelled ‘no dignity at all for Skystalker’. He threw himself on top of Sunspot’s backframe, his components fitting in compactly. Droneling frames were made to store nicely, after all. Not something he liked thinking. He ached for his old frame. Big. Powerful. One of a kind. “Not a slaggin’ droneling,” he muttered, feeling Sunspot’s wings spread, and then fold behind his shoulders, locking in under his own wings.

“I know,” Sunspot murmured, optic dimming with sleep, wriggling between the two, his EM field humming with pure contentment as Stalker gave up and let his wings lock in over narrow yellow shoulders. “You’re a lot nicer.”