red_diode_district | The Start of Something Interesting...

Mirage has a nice laughter. Cliffjumper's own chuckles dwindle down and he squirms then shakes his helm. He could feel the vibrations from Mirage's chuckling against the back of his helm.

"Yeah, of course, it fraggin' was," with a huff, he crossed his arms over his chestplates, amusement still lingering, "I'll have you know my name don't got fraggin' anythin' to do with jumping actual cliffs!"

At least not in the meaning Mirage had meant it, or the meaning anyone else who'd pulled out that joke - especially if they did it in English - had used. Subsequently, there'd been an increase in those stupid jokes after their crash on Earth and he chose to translate his name this way. It'd just been easier, that was all.

Mirage's guffaws were slow to fade, his amusement lingering thanks to cold and their odd sense of comfort.

"...O-oh really? I should hope not. I've seen you jump."

Straightening back up with a final snicker, Mirage gave Cliffjumper an apologetic pat.

"I don't think I've heard the glyphs of your name rendered in anything but Common."

"I am goin' to beat you up," Cliffjumper said, grumbling even if the threat held no greater heat, "that was just once, ya know!"

Everybody and their fragging protoform liked to pull that one failure up! Though he supposed it was better than poking at his tendency to seeing spies and traitors in a lot of places...

Huffing at the pat, Cliffjumper nonetheless settled and gave a grimace.

"Don't see why it matters, not like the meaning changes or anythin'..." glancing back over his shoulder as much as he could, Cliffjumper eyed Mirage briefly, "but if ya want to hear it..."

That... he wasn't sure how that made him feel, beyond a bright little twitch around his spark chamber. Which was stupid.

But fine, Mirage sort of asked, and it wouldn't really hurt to respond.

So Cliffjumper did, and it felt weirdly good to fall back in his native Central Polyhexian dialect. Bumblebee was usually the only one who tried to use it while they were alone - he tried to do the same for Bumblebee, but Cliffjumper's proficiency in other city-states' dialects and accents wasn't... the best.

He tried though, and Bee appreciated it just the same.

"If we get out of here, you are more than welcome to try..." Mirage started seriously, apparently willing to deal with an attempted beat-down if it meant they would escape their current fate. But he paused when Cliffjumper spoke, voice shifting back into proper Cybertronian.

It was...nice to hear. The minibot's voice simply sounded better in their native language, even if the dialect was one the Towers - and the old Mirage - would have scoffed at.

He certainly wasn't scoffing now.

"...And I did want to hear it, thank you. Not a dialect I am very familiar with, but your designation does sound much more refined in your native tongue."

"I still might," Cliffjumper said with a mutter even as he ducked his helm at the compliment about his name, "dunno 'bout refined, but yeah. I like it." Huffing, Cliffjumper shifted around and tried to ignore the bright, pleased glow at Mirage having liked it.

That was just embarrassing.

"Ever go to Polyhex before the war?" Cliffjumper asked, this time not turning around as he traced out armour seams and angles in his legs, "and... uh, what about your name?"

He knew Mirage probably wouldn't think any of it, given that Mirage had asked and it'd just be polite to ask again, but it still felt like it'd be something special. Partly because none of them spoke anything but Iaconian Common since early on in the war.

He was sure it had something to do with 'ease of understanding each other' or whatever slag, and he didn't care, really. But it did render their native dialects and accents something near special.

"Cliffjumper. Earth languages make Kaonite sound good. Of course Polyhexen sounds refined."

He laughed, before shaking his head.

"I've only ever passed through, unfortunately."

He carefully left out the general opinion of Polyhex held by Towers-mechs involved generally disparaging remarks about 'commonality'.

"You will have to tell me the highlights. As for my designation..."

He preened a bit, before reverting back to the luting, elegant dialect he had been forged to - his name sounding both longer, prettier, and far more pompous in Towers-speak.

He shouldn't laugh, but he did, giving Mirage's right knee a knock with his elbow, but he had to quiet himself before he got to say anything as Mirage continued, and he wanted to hear it.

Even if he probably... yeah. Cliffjumper managed to not snort, but ended up grimacing. At least Mirage couldn't see that. It did rub him the wrong way, that pompous, arrogant inflection... But the rest of it, the way Mirage spoke and his voice shifted, not just in a subtle way in tone but also in cadence, seemed to just fit him far better than the more straightforward Common.

Not that Iaconian didn't have nobles, or poetry, or pompous windbags and everything, but Towers-dialect was... well, it's own thing, and it was no more clear than right then.

"... Pretty." Pause. "In a stuck-up, prissy noble sort of way," Cliffjumper quickly added, ducking his helm to hide his blush at letting his first, (mostly) unfiltered opinion slip out.

"And ya know, I'm pretty sure the mess the Neutral Territories made of the language is far worse than Kaonite. And there ain't nothing wrong with Polyhexian," Cliffjumper said with a huff, defending his native dialect, though not particularly seriously.

"Oh haha," Mirage grumbled, rolling his eyes at the back of Cliffjumper's helm. But his following sigh was resigned, even if he felt some warm pleasure at the idea that even a mech like Cliffjumper could find his name pretty.

"Thank you. But I'm sure most of our names and words come across that way to most at this point."

He sniffed haughtily, having a hand airily under the tarp.

"And of course there is nothing wrong with Polyhexian - it is perfectly, boringly average. A solid middle ground."

"Like most fraggin' dialects, you glitch!" Cliffjumper huffed sharply and almost snapped an elbow back - he managed to restrain himself, however, "we can't everybody be special little fractals."

The earlier flusteredness blew away into vaguely cranky annoyance, even if it was muted both by the softened friendliness in the air as well as the cold.

"And I dunno. I'm pretty sure nothin' can make the shrieky loudness the mechs from the Sonic Canyon call their 'dialect' sound nice. Not even four million years of speakin' and hearin' only common."

That wasn't particularly generous, really, and something of a personal opinion, but Cliffjumper didn't care. A mech like Siren speaking gave him a fraggin' processor ache.

Mirage threw his head back and laughed at the insult. There was something about sparking Cliffjumper's temper - when said temper was harmless and over mundane things - that pleased him to a unreasonable degree.

And the crack at the Sonic Canyon was simply inspired.

"Oh! Oh! If we only ever agree on one thing ever again, it is that!"

He slumped against Cliffjumper's back, giddy and laughing. The cold was probably at least partially to blame for his reaction, but it was still a positive one.

Surprised at the burst of laughter, Cliffjumper squinted up at Mirage. He couldn't, however, pick up any mocking - Mirage was just honestly amused, even if Cliffjumper had insulted him.

He was still annoyed, but the fact that he wasn't being laughed at or otherwise made fun of soothed his tangled wiring a little. And he smirked when Mirage agreed with him about the denizens of the Sonic Canyon.

"Yeah, they're--- hey! I ain't a fraggin' piece of furniture," Cliffjumper huffed, squirming at the weight of Mirage leaning against him, but he didn't push him off or crack an elbow back.

"Place might be important, but I'd rather not have to be within hearin' distance of even a single mech from there," he said with a grumble, shaking his helm.

Nor would I," Mirage agreed easily, "and you shouldn't have to. I don't think there is a single one here locally or even on any nearby posts."

Thank Primus.

"And completely furniture right now, both of us."

Mirage snickered, tightening his hold on the smaller mech, and continuing to lean down, slumping against his back.

"You're my fore-rest, and I am your back rest."

"Wouldn't mind one of 'em if they came with a ship off of here if we could kick the 'Cons off as well at the same time..." trailing off, Cliffjumper huffed and then blushed when Mirage very pointedly tightened his grip and literally slumped against his back.

"Hey! Not like I'm leaning back against you is it?" Not like he could with Mirage leaned forward against him like this, and he was suddenly far too aware of every single point and stretch where their metal was pressed together.

Squirming, Cliffjumper nonetheless didn't try to shake Mirage off - both because that'd let their marginally warmer air in here escape and, despite the embarrassment warming his circuits, he didn't exactly... want to.

"There - they have one use, then," Mirage laughed, not entirely serious.

"We welcome any and all Sonic Canyon residents - so long as you bring your own functional ships!"

He snickered again at Cliffjumper's objections, leaning even further forward pointedly before returning to a not-quite-so-rude position.

"You could be leaning back, though!"

He wouldn't care either way - the warmth was still too precious to waste, and his logic processors felt half-frozen.

"Kinda hard with ya leanin' on me like that," Cliffjumper huffed and then, slowly realising that either Mirage acted a lot differently when they weren't at odds and alone, or...

"Hey..? You okay?" Tilting his helm back now that he could do so without ending up staring right up into the underside of Mirage's jaw, Cliffjumper squinted up at him feeling distinctly slow compared to usual.

Perhaps they should just down the energon they had and go into recharge or something, but given the possibilities of Decepticons outside and that it didn't seem like a good idea to do that in this place either way, Cliffjumper really would rather not.

Mirage's snickers were slow to cut off, but when they did, they did so abruptly.

"Hmm?"

Mirage went silent, pausing to actually think about it. He leaned back some, frowning against Cliffjumper's helm.

"I...Not really, no. Which is terribly amusing to me and I have no idea why."

Mirage giggled, despite the vaguely horrified tone.

"My logic centers stopped giving me warming errors four breems ago."

Waiting for Mirage to think things over was slow torture. Both because he was worried and because his slow processing seemed to affect his sense of time, despite the chronometer right there in the corner of his HUD, was pointing out how much time was passing.

"... Great. I think you should... uh... burn more fuel? So you gotta down some of that energon," Cliffjumper said, squinting at the tarp of the parachute fluttering in the doorway.

It was frustrating how long it took to think.

He also hoped Mirage stopped giggling, because while it sounded nice, it also... was all wrong.

"Oh. Well. I suppose it would be worth an attempt."

The idea of cranking up his already steadily working engines and internals sounded terribly exhausting though. But he still shrugged, before cranking them up another few degrees. His core temperature sluggishly started to climb, but his extremities - and helm - weren't showing much reaction at all.

"Hn."

The urge to giggle was pretty much gone, and that sudden, abrupt switch from giddiness to exhaustion worried him.

Mirage started weakly wiggling around under the tarp, trying to get to his subspaced rations without uncovering them both.

Normally Mirage's wriggling would've annoyed him - or made him flustered. At the moment it sort of hovered between sluggish indifference and concern. Cliffjumper felt slow, and he knew, in a distant sort of way, that that wasn't a good thing, but focusing wasn't happening.

Instead he sat there, helm slightly tilted, and felt Mirage move around. It still took him a bit to come to the thought that might be useful.

"Want me to try and get it?" It, he was pretty sure, would be the energon ratings - since he'd suggested that to Mirage earlier.

He was pretty sure, anyway.

After a few more moments of struggle, Mirage paused with a slump.

"...Yes. That might be. Helpful."

Silently, he slipped his arm around Cliffjumper's waist to his front, presenting the opened subspace pocket in his forearm. (Cliffjumper, should he delve inside, should fit it unexpectedly large for a simple arm-pocket.)

All said, much easier than trying to get into it himself, much to Mirage's dull annoyance.

"Uhh, great. Good. I'll... do that," Cliffjumper said while day there for a few moments, caught between slowly remembering what it was he was supposed to do, and the feel of Mirage's chilly metal against his own. Shaking his helm, Cliffjumper kept the shudder in as he realised how much his processing had slowed down when he aactually remembered what it was he was supposed to do.

"Right, the spare rations..." muttering more to himself, Cliffjumper ran his fingers along the metal - only slightly self-indulgent - until he hit the wavery tension-distortion that was the subspace pocket, and stuck his hand in.

"What'd ya even got in here ya need all this space for..." Shaking his helm and despite the lag between feeling, realising, thinking and doing, he did find what he waslooking for and pulledtwoof the small cubes out.

"Stuff," Mirage huffs, grumbling. While the touch is nice -warm- he decides he doesn't particularly like the feel of someone else rummaging through his 'stuff'. It's letting the cold into his subspace and it makes him shiver.

"Lots of mission...stuff. Things. Very important."

He closes the pocket as soon as Cliffjumper retrieves the cubes, wiggling around to try and get his hands on one.

"Good. We can refuel." Mirage's engine already feels tired. He could use it.

Squinting up at Mirage again as he held the cube up so the mech could more easily get at it, he didn't get what it was that sounded strange at first.

Then he realised that Mirage was sort of talking like he was thinking.

"Yeah, you really, really... Uhm... Need this," Cliffjumper said as he wiggled the cube, vaguely reluctant to hand it over, though whether it was from the faint heat conducted through the cube or because it was energon and he probably needed it.

"Likely."

Closing long fingers around the cube, Mirage reluctantly slid his hand out of the tarp to bring the cube to his lips for a deep draught-

Oh.

Oh.

He tilted his head back, switching from drinking to gulping it down like a starving mech - which he practically was, engine running hard and fast with half-frozen fuel lines. It wasn't real warmth that spread through him as the energy hit his fuel tank, but it was good enough.

Cliffjumper was actually mostly stuck staring at the energon in the remaining cube shift around as he tilted it from side to side. His the valve in his tank is opening and closing, a muted, clicking demand for attention, but he was quite caught by the glittering slide of the liquid, and wasn't exactly sure what it was he was hearing.

Not with the noise of Mirage throwing back energon like he was staring distracting him, as well as the colour of the energon, the noise of the wind outside on the tarp, the faint heat trapped between him and Mirage and the pressure of the rock up against the bottom of his feet...

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