lastonepercent (
lastonepercent) wrote in
red_diode_district2013-11-10 05:39 pm
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The Start of Something Interesting...
The day was calm, with no recent Decepticon attacks, and none suspected to be incoming for some time. The cons were too busy licking their wounds from the last battle, one that the Autobots had decidedly come out ahead on. The celebrations had gone on long into the night and the recreation room was already a mess.
Thus, it was the perfect chance for a lone Autobot to slip casually outside.
Mirage had no shift currently scheduled, so he was free to spend his time as he pleased. He certainly made no move to hide his departure, greeting his comrades in the halls on the way out, but the box in his hands remained unopened despite any passing curiosity. It was quietly shifted into subspace before long, and the former noble shifted into alt mode just as smoothly when he reached the doors. Despite the completely inappropriate earthen race car mode, the mech had little trouble self-adjusting before driving off into the forest covering the mountain, for business unknown...
Thus, it was the perfect chance for a lone Autobot to slip casually outside.
Mirage had no shift currently scheduled, so he was free to spend his time as he pleased. He certainly made no move to hide his departure, greeting his comrades in the halls on the way out, but the box in his hands remained unopened despite any passing curiosity. It was quietly shifted into subspace before long, and the former noble shifted into alt mode just as smoothly when he reached the doors. Despite the completely inappropriate earthen race car mode, the mech had little trouble self-adjusting before driving off into the forest covering the mountain, for business unknown...
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The series of viral purges had been hell on Mirage's processor, leaving him with a low-grade headache that hadn't gone away since the first day back. He was due for his final treatment, which should hopefully resolve the last of the lingering issues - including the pit-formed headache.
Leaning against the wall, Mirage awaited for the elevator with a sense of dull resolve. He hoped Ratchet's confusion at someone arriving to the medbay for their scheduled appointment early be enough to let him slip in and get it over with.
::Going down; Medbay level.:: Teletran chimed happily as the elevator arrived. Mirage stepped in, half-blinded by the hand rubbing at still-healing faceplates - only to freeze in the doorway at the flash of red inside.
"...Oh."
Drat.
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Then the doors opened and why did it have to be Mirage? He had no slagging idea how in the rust-addled slag he was supposed to deal with the mech by now.
"Uh..." Because there was that ever-present and frustrating happy little tingle at seeing the tall, slender noble, and then there was a whole bunch of remembered annoyances, humiliations and feeling ashamed over his fragging foolish crush.
Biting his lower lip and stopping immediately when he realised what he was doing, Cliffjumper also realised he was caught in a really awkward pause, but how the frag was he supposed to react to 'oh'?
(Somewhere, deeper inside, that flat little 'oh' made something sink but maybe that was just as well.)
After that moment dragged on, he finally gave a half-hearted little wave and looked away.
Smooth.
How slagging embarrassing!
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"...Well. Hello."
Remembering himself at the almost friendly greeting, Mirage stopped staring and simply stepped inside. Sliding up next to Cliffjumper - at a socially proper distance - he turned and faced the doors as they closed.
"...Third floor, Medbay please."
Awkward.
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Frag it all to pit, could it get wor---
The lights flickered, dimmed and then popped with an unpleasantly cutting flare, both visually and audibly.
"Gah! What the..."
Darkness.
"Fraggin' pit! What the slag happened!?"
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"-we've stoppped," he grunted, optics gone wide in the sudden darkness.
Dim red emergency lighting popped on immediately, illuminating the ground at their feet, before sputtering out and dying as well.
At least the emergency breaks held, latching the elevator firmly in place.
"Oh, that isn't good."
::Teletran? Red Alert? Anyone know what the issue with elevator seven is?::
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"Fraggin' fantastic. I thought they'd isolated the blasted labs to keep slag like this from happenin'!" Growling, he slid down to sit, letting the headlights in his feet turn on and jerkily rested his arms on his knees, chin on his hands.
The beams of light cut through the smothering darkness with surprising sharpness and at least Mirage, since he was beside him, didn't get a faceful of bright light. Since the elevator was a limited space, it did lighten up the elevator as a whole at least a little.
And sure, they both had enough vision-spectrum to widen their ability to see, but that just wasn't the same, and it was more useful when having to navigate through darkness, not just for sitting around.
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Mirage sighed, pinching his brow in the dark as his processor ache turned into a dull throb. He winced faintly at the sudden glare of Cliffjumper's headlights, but turned on his own running lights for simplicity's sake. They weren't nearly as large or powerful as the minibot's (as his altmode technically did not possess any proper lighting) but the internal lamps lit up the top half of the elevator.
"And someone, in their infinite wisdom, probably decided to design a device to breech those exact fail-safes without thinking, or some other ridiculously moronic 'experiment'."
Because reckless scientists were a much better option that an attack.
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"Without even warnin' everyone. And if that ain't it, I'm kinda worried what they did do if it was all unintentional."
At least darkness didn't bother him, even if neither of them had had headlights of any sort . could still see in that with a bit of effort. This was just annoying and he did not like the thought of the fact that they were suspended in the elevator shaft.
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"'There is never enough science' according to Perceptor and the others."
Casually, he leaned against the wall, trying to will himself to be patient with the inevitable wait - and the painful throb in his head.
"So. Shall we take bets on the estimated wait time?"
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There's nothing special with the noise, but given who just made it it seems all the more... endearing. Not that he'd call anyone endearing.
Well, except maybe Bumblebee.
"Gonna fraggin' blow us sky high sometime, the way they go on," Cliffjumper huffed and shook his helm, "and uh... I'd say half a joor."
Pausing, he then angled his helm to look up at Mirage, grinning still.
"So what are we betting?"
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Primus, please let it be less than two, Mirage grumbled internally. He just wanted his processor ache wiped clean so he could actually enjoy his mandatory downtime after the botched mission.
He shrugged weakly at Cliffjumper's question, waving a hand.
"As for what we're betting... What would you prefer? Credit chits are always an option, upon others."
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"And it's probably just as well to use chits. Still got some I could use."
Given the lack of access to outside sources of credit chits, they were, quite understandably, mostly "paid" in extra energon or had the amounts written up for later.
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Mirage managed a wry smile, impressed by Cliffjumper's maneuvering. Usually that was his own stance as well, but he was simply too impatient to be out and in the medbay to plot.
"But no, sitting in an elevator is not my idea of a good time either."
Understatement.
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They weren't anywhere near the bottom of the ship, which meant that they were fragging lucky the brakes had kicked in and were holding. Otherwise, well. Otherwise they'd be in trouble. Sure, the brakes were supposed to hold, in a manually induced emergency stop or a power failure, but still.
"I'd take a 'Con attack over this," Cliffjumper said, the earlier laugh melting away as he huffed, pausing. Uncertain what to say now, if anything at all. He hadn't thought he'd end up like this with Mirage, having the chance to have a conversation, regardless of if Mirage would end up agreeing to train him or not.
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Mirage chuckled lightly, half his amusement stemming from his relief that the situation was remaining tolerable.
Lights turning slightly as Mirage moved, the noble glanced down at the previous movement of Cliffjumper's hands.
"...Still getting repair work done?"
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And even if Mirage had caught him flexing and rubbing his hand, he'd have no reason to mention it to the medics, and didn't know what Cliffjumper was planning on trying to fly past the medics.
"Uh, nah." Glancing up at Mirage, Cliffjumper shrugged and wriggled the fingers of his repaired hand, which helped ease out the tension a bit more, too. "Integratin' scrap and whatnot. Still not cleared to use it much yet, but kinda hopin' soon. What about your..."
Extricating an arm from the loose fold over his knees, Cliffjumper waved it at Mirage, intending to indicate both his physical injury and whatever might've happened before he distracted Soundwave and his scraplets. Mirage hadn't been physically restrained but had obviously been taken down somehow and not using his invisibility, so something had clearly happened before he got there.
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Mirage sighed, unable to keep down the vain ire that came with getting his face damaged.
"Recovering."
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Vain mechs.
"Promise you're still pretty, ya know---" The words disappeared into the flat silence of a vocaliser yanked into neutral.
WHAT THE FRAG DID HE JUST SAY?
Oh, he'd meant it to be teasing, just light ribbing that would mean absolutely nothing, but Cliffjumper had no idea if that was how it'd come across, especially as he... did mean it sincerely and he wasn't a good liar.
Gritting his teeth, he stared at the floor, hoped the dim light hadn't revealed the flickering flare of his optics too much and that Mirage hadn't picked up on the probably not-so-hidden sincerity, or if he had that he'd disregard it.
Miss it because it was too there, because it was too improbable.
Since that's what it was, right.
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Mirage's hand froze over the healing scar, golden optics flicking over to the suddenly hunched minibot.
If it hadn't been for the sudden halt in Cliffjumper's words - and of course, the body language that followed - Mirage would have been readily able to shrug it off as a joke.
He leaned toward it being a joke; a sarcastic barb, thrown his way. But it was his job to notice such discrepancies. He couldn't not see it.
But.
"...Thank you?" He managed, optics still rather wide.
At least, despite earning the minibot's disdain long ago, he still had good taste.
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Cliffjumper wasn't sure if that response was better or worse than he'd imagined, and if he could just behave somewhat normally now, it'd be okay. After a fashion, but okay insofar as Mirage probably wouldn't put any weight to the statement.
Other than what he'd literally said, that was.
"Gghh---Uh, yeah. Sure. You're... welcome." Scrubbing a hand down his faceplate, Cliffjumper had no idea how that would be interpreted and felt tension crawl through him.
Unable to sit still, he jumped up and started to pace the elevator. It gave him something other than Mirage and his stupid slip to think about - even if it hadn't technically been a bad slip, but frag it all - and also do.
Unfortunately it also made him more aware of the fact that the floor at the moment would be above a lot of empty air.
He kept pacing, his headlights throwing mad lances of light and darkness in the narrow space.
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Hardly a proper way to handle a compliment, unexpected or not! Even from an unlikely source.
He glanced away for several moments, allowing Cliffjumper time to recover from his obvious embarrassment, and to think.
Unfortunately, the pacing was more of a distraction than he anticipated.
Mirage winced at the constant moving and flickering of Cliffjumper's headlights. The constant adjustments it was forcing on his optics, while normally not worth noticing, was driving his headache intensity up in increments.
"...Must you pace like that? There really isn't much room for it, is there?"
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"... Suppose not."
Engine grumbling along with the annoyed mutter from the mini, Cliffjumper hesitated before he stomped across the elevator one more time and then sunk back down in his previous spot. He still felt really, fragging embarrassed at having slipped up, but he couldn't really sit on the other side of the elevator and not give Mirage a faceful of bright light from his headlights, so sitting beside him it was.
Besides, Mirage had... it appeared, only picked up on the sincerity in relation to the compliment, not the underlying reason for the sincerity. That... worked. That was good and he didn't need to feel embarrassed anymore.
Because really, anyone who couldn't tell Mirage was stunning was just dead. He could even admit Sunstreaker and Tracks were attractive, but he wouldn't compliment them on that.
"Just too little fraggin' space in here." Which wasn't the real issue with this elevator, but the longer they were in here, the more aware he got of the fact that they were hanging suspended in the elevator shaft.
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He withheld a groan at Cliffjumper's words - he really, really hoped the minibot didn't devolve into a full-blown claustrophobia.
"I'd offer to go invisible to make it seem like there was more room at least, but unfortunately, I have yet to regain full use."
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"You'd still be in here, wouldn't ya? So invisible or not that ain't gonna make it easier to pace." Glancing away and letting his engine rumble, Cliffjumper scowled. "Would be somethin' to do at least..."
Because there really wasn't much of anything to do in here, and he had no idea how to hold a conversation with Mirage of all mechs, even disregarding all the stupid, embarrassing slag that had happened between them up until now or the fact that he had a stupid and utterly foolish crush on the noble.
And if he started talking despite all those things, he might have another slip... or accidentally reveal what was actually bothering him with the elevator. Claustrophobia? Hardly.
To distract himself, he pulled out a mesh cloth and his glass gas gun, going over it with the cloth. He'd take out the new blasted he'd been requisitioned and pull it apart and then back together again, but that might make it harder to convince the medics his hand was fine if he stressed it too much...
"... They musta hit ya hard for the mod to still be out."
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His lips twitched with the weak laugh, before making a face at the blunt reminder. Hard hit indeed. Mirage nodded reluctantly none the less.
"Hm. You could say that."
He shifted in place, posture be damned as he slowly slid down the wall to join Cliffjumper on the floor.
"Ratchet has been...slogging his way through the mess left behind. Hence the..."
He waved a hand vaguely up toward his optics, which had gone dim and unfocused despite the lack of light in the elevator thanks to the pain.
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