#Datawork and Drinks

[lazinesswrites]

What better way to end the weekend (or start your Monday…) than with some pre-CodyWan domesticity? This is my fill for @dankfarrikdrabbles and @fanfoolishness‘s Star Wars ‘tober, day 5: Caf. It is also inspired by this lovely comic for the same prompt by @starwarjotta, which you should all go read right now. Well. Maybe read my fic first, and then go read the comic, because you will want to stare at it forever.

Also, thank you @crankyfossil – without you, this fic… well, it would still have been posted, but the table would’ve been wonky, and it would have annoyed me forever. So you may not have saved the fic, but you did save my sanity.

Summary: Cody and Obi-Wan work on datawork together in Obi-Wan’s quarters, and Cody has… feelings. Also, there's caf.

[meebles]

Several Sentence Sunday

I was tagged by @biscuityskies over a month ago, and I'm excited that I now have something to share! Thank you for the tag! This is another WIP for a @codywanfirstkissbingo fill, in which Cody and Obi-Wan end up forming their own little two-person bookclub to read a cheesy romance together :) here's the start of the lead-up to that:

“Those are my datapads.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t bother looking up from the requisition form he’s currently checking over. “Correct,” he says, waving a hand absently to shut his office door, having previously opened it to let his commander inside.

He can feel the irritation wafting off of Cody— purposefully, since Obi-Wan knows for a fact that Cody’s shielding is durasteel-clad should he wish it so— and bites back a smile. He signs the pad with a quick flourish of his finger, and sets it aside before looking up. When he does, he sees Cody reaching for the remaining stack of pads, which Obi-Wan quickly pulls through the air and into his own hands before Cody can grab them.

Cody huffs, but Obi-Wan doesn’t miss the barely-there twitch of his lips. “I don’t need you to do my datawork for me. Sir.”

“I know you don’t need me to, but I wanted to,” Obi-Wan shrugs. “I finished my own for the night, so I figured I might as well. I wanted you to have enough time for Waxer’s book club.”

Cody raises a brow at him. “I hadn’t realized you’d heard about that.”

Internally, Obi-Wan winces, afraid he’s overstepped. “They were talking about it in the mess. I know you like reading, and I know the two of you are close, so I just assumed. I apologize, if I— ”

“No, I— I do appreciate it, General, thank you. But I’m not going.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan says, frowning. “Not interested in what they’re reading?”

Cody shakes his head, pulling over a chair and setting himself down. “No, it’s not that. I am actually interested in the book they chose, but it’s… ” Cody purses his lips, averting his gaze and staring into the middle distance behind Obi-Wan. “Everyone else who attends is of similar rank. My vode need some time away from the chain of authority, especially their commander. I don’t want to intrude.”

“Cody, I’m sure they would— ”

“I know they would let me join, if I asked. But I also know that bookclub is about 30% actually discussing the book, 70% drinking the starshine we don’t know about while shooting the shit.” Cody meets his eyes, shrugging. “It’s no big deal, really. We still spar and have our holo nights whenever the opportunity arises, but I want to let them have this.”

“Ah,” Obi-Wan nods. “That’s very considerate of you, Cody. However, I’m still sorry that the nature of the situation prevents you from joining them, especially if it’s something you wanted to read.”

Cody shrugs again. “If I want to, I can just read it on my own. Unlike my datawork, however, which I cannot complete unless you actually give it back to— ”

He cuts himself off with a snort, shaking his head as he watches the stack rise towards the ceiling of the room, just out of reach. Obi-Wan grins, ridiculously pleased as always when he can pull a laugh out of the other man.

I'll tag @countryboyskywalker @petrifiedforests @anxiousotters @bluemaskedkarma @loverboy-havocboy @goddammitjim and anyone else who wants to play!

[consw]

pipe dreams like surviving

Thorn & Stone & Thire & Fox

Gen, no warnings

Read on AO3 (1,074 words) Read on Tumblr ↓

"After,” Thorn pauses, as if considering whether or not to say the next part. “If we survive to the end of the war, what’s one thing you’d like to do?”

In their shared office, on one of the few shifts that all the Coruscant Guard commanders have together, Thire looks up at Thorn, expression considering. Fox lets out a short huff of air but doesn’t look up from his datapad. It’s Stone who answers first. “I’d like to get off this kark bucket of a planet and live somewhere by a river, or in a forest, maybe on Alderaan. I don't want to deal with people.”

Thorn nods along and looks at Thire next. “What about you?“

“It’s a good question,” Thire says, still thinking about what to say. “I don’t think I still want to do the things I dreamed about doing in my cadet years.”

Thorn softens a little bit. “It doesn’t have to be something big, just any one thing you’d want to do.”

Thire thinks for a moment longer before letting out half a laugh. “I‘d want to kill a senator and get away with it,” he says with a smirk.

Stone and Thorn make noises of agreement and Fox finally looks up from his datapad, raises his mug at Thire and says, “I’ll drink to that,” before taking a large swig of his lukewarm caf.

Thire continues, “I mean, without the Guard, who’d investigate it? CSF?” Stone snorts at that. Thire leans back in his chair with a smile as if daydreaming about it.

“And what about you, Fox?” Thorn asks before Fox can pick up his datapad again.

Fox grimaces a little. “After the war…” Thorn winces. He tried not to use that exact phrasing. “I’ll be honest, I think even if the war ended,” If, not when, Thorn notes, “The Coruscant Guard would have to keep working.” Something heavy settles onto his shoulders as he says that. “We practically run this planet. The Senate Guard is ceremonial at best, the CSF is a joke, and even the prisons alone would take ages to fill with all natborn staff,” Fox continues. “And it wouldn’t just take time, but money. I bet the Senate would rather keep the staff they don’t have to pay.”

Thire sits back up and closes his eyes. Stone thumps his head down onto his desk. Thorn can feel the despair starting to creep into the room. So much for a lighthearted question to cheer them up.

Fox sees Stone’s head hit his desk and he tries to console him a little. “Stone, even if you don’t get to live there, you’ll probably at least be able to see a forest and river on one of your escort missions.” Fox huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “The only way I’m getting off Coruscant is in a body bag.”

Thorn can't stand the depressive mood any longer and he stands up, making Fox turn to look at him. He walks over to Fox’s desk and looks him in the eye. “Take my next escort mission. You should get to see at least one planet other than Kamino, Coruscant, or Geonosis.”

Fox is about to protest, but Thorn continues. “You can do datawork in hyperspace, you can tell the Chancellor ahead of time that you’ll be unavailable, and we can take your shifts. We’re commanders too, after all. We can keep the Guard running for a tenday without you.”

Fox looks like he’s seriously considering taking the mission. Thorn counts that as a win. “Who are we escorting?” Fox asks.

“Amidala.” Amidala is one of the better senators, and he’s not sure if that will make Fox more or less likely to accept. The hardest part of this mission isn’t dealing with the senator they’re escorting, however, it’s that they’re going to the headquarters of the Intergalactic Banking Clans while the clans are currently being prosecuted for corruption, and having a former senator who was removed from his position go with Amidala to be instated as the new head of the clans. Amidala has a habit of getting into trouble, and there's already been an assassination attempt on her on this specific planet not a tenday ago. Thorn genuinely doesn't know how she's still alive when this many people have tried to kill her.

Fox pulls a face. “General Skywalker really doesn’t like me right now. I think he’d be unhappy with me anywhere near Senator Amidala. I’d rather avoid any more incidents with him.” The other commanders exchange glances but don’t say anything. They still haven’t really talked about the Fives incident. Fox did what he had to, probably. There’s some things in the Guard that are easier not to talk about.

Thorn sighs. “Then take whatever my next escort mission is after that. Good or bad, it’ll at least be somewhere new for you.” Fox deserves to see the universe, to not die on this shitty planet without having known anything else.

“We’ll see.” Fox hums noncommittally. Thorn will bring it up some other time. At least he got their minds off the depressing future outlook of the Corries. It's not something Thorn likes to think about. He tries to avoid it when he can.

It's the kind of thought that leads to dead troopers. If nothing will ever get better, then why bother continuing at all? There's no good rebuttal for that, not for a Corrie. Thorn keeps going because he has to, simple as that. He knows it's the same for the other commanders. Without any one of them there, more troopers would die. It's their job to save as many as they can.

Thorn glances around to see that the other commanders have already gotten back to work. Thorn hates datawork. He’d much rather be shooting at something, but that's what most clones would rather be doing. It's what they were trained for, not this.

Thorn takes a long look at each of their faces, focused on screens as they are. Who knows the next time they’ll all be in the same room for a non-emergency?

But he sighs and turns back on his datapad to finish reading the report of the senate vote earlier that day, which resulted in Rush Clovis’ appointment as the new head of the Intergalactic Banking Clans. He needs to at least get through this document, if nothing else. After all, he’s escorting Clovis and Amidala to Scipio tomorrow.

[moonlight-tmd]

Ooh regarding shockbee I always thought a fun idea to write out would be Bee just dropping the fact that he has a Prime for a boyfriend or something like that, considering only Bulkhead would really know about being close to Longarm at Bootcamp-

Yep, Bee would defo do that. XD

He would be just talking with someone and then they'd mention something about relationships and Bee just casually drops that Longarm is his Sparkmate and the fact he's a very high ranking Prime(even if he's just doing datawork all the time).

Imagine the look on that bot's face when they hear that from a streetwise, dirty repair bot. They'd think he's lying but then Longarm shows up to pick him up from the party or something and everyone's jaws just drop.

Now i imagine Longarm and Bee got together at boot camp and only Bulkhead knew, they weren't really keen on showing affection in public. So then Bee gets kicked out and Longarms stays to graduate. They call each other all the time, Bulkhead sometimes joins, the rest of the crew doesn't really know about that.

But then Bee and the crew goes missing. Longarm is distraught, he does everything he can to find Bee. Then he hears about an expedition to this planet called "Earth" and he tags along and boom, they find each other.

So they get there, they find the missing crew and the Allspark and the few 'cons along with Megs. But that's not on Longarm's(Shockwave's) processor- the only thing he cares about is that Bee is alive. (also Bulkhead too, he does care about him but not as much as Bee)

Longarm visits quite often- he tagged along on Steelhaven and has his own mini-ship to fly in and out of Earth's atmosphere. The others are surprised he is at their base so often, they know he, Bee and Bulkhead went to boot camp together but that's about it.

Now i imagine Longarm bringing them sweets and stuff, he'll bring them meal-metals, fancy (non-'alcoholic') drinks and all sorts of snacks and maybe some small gifts- the one to get the most of them will be Bumblebee.

One time Longarm drops by for a real short visit and brings an entire energon cake for Bee only. And not just any cake, it's a high end one too, the luxurious kinda food. The others have no idea why Longarm would give Bee out of all the 'bots something like that.

"Because we're Sparkmates, duh. Also it's our anniversary." He casually said while taking another bite of the piece of the cake on his plate. The look on everyone's faces (except Bulkhead) is hilarious, especially Optimus'- the little mech he treated almost like a son is Sparkmates with the high-end Prime, Longarm. Longarm outranks him now that's he's on the repair crew, for the record.

So- the little, humble Bumblebee has access to luxurious stuff via his lover who's a high-positioned Prime. He's able to essentially get whatever he wants and indirectly influence other bots' lives- for the better or worse. They never expected someone like Bumblebee to have that kinda power.

The surprising part is that Bee doesn't really seem keen on all the opportunities for his own life to improve, he'd rather live his life to the full- and he does that by being stranded on a planted called dirt and helping tiny organics with mundane things while also indulging in their weird culture. Sure, he does like an occasional high-quality polish or rare cybertronian food, but most of the time he likes to run around in the rain and play in mud and dig in trash to find beautiful things. Similar to Bulkhead- he's happy with what he has, and enjoys spending time with the ones he cares about.

Still, the fact he doesn't take opportunities to get himself somewhere higher in life doesn't mean he won't do anything for others- he most definitelly pulls a few string to get stuff for his friends, for example; Ratchet gets better med equipment and Optimus gets access to specific files if he needs it. I imagine Prowl would get some ninja equipment from Jazz sometimes but that's not important.

It's a cool thing, a headcanon for the ship is you will, it's definitelly something Longarm(Shockwave) would do. Just spoil his little Bee with all the sweets. And Bee casually telling (or not) that his Sparkmate/Conjunx is a Prime. XD

[tereox]

Warmup #45 - Codywan

Rating: G

Summary: Cody's still doing datawork when Obi-Wan gets up in the morning. An intervention is staged.

~~~

There was a hand one Cody's arm and he looked at it for several seconds before turning to look at Obi-Wan, to whom the hand was coincidentally attached to.

"Oh. Hey." He felt.. relief seeing the other. But not much else. He had more-

"It's 0600. Have you slept?"

Cody looked at the chrono. At his work. Back to Obi-Wan. "Don't think I did." It was a little hazy.

Obi-Wan hummed, looking at something in the distance. Then the hand on Cody's arm was gone and Obi-Wan moved somewhere with purpose.

It was.. difficult to not feel disappointment. He looked back at his datawork to distract himself, and then something was called at him from wherever Obi-Wan had gone off to. "Chamomile or that berry one you like so much?"

The words in front of him did not match with what Obi-Wan had asked him and it took him an embarrassing amount of time to realise he meant tea.

Cody could go for some tea, his water bottle was doing only so much to sustain him.

Obi-Wan looked at him from the doorway to the small kitchen. "Cody?"

Right. "The berry one." He tacked a 'please' behind it after a moment, and shut down the datapad. He might not have gotten sleep but his next shift- no, he had a meeting. With Obi-Wan, coincidentally.

He made it to the couch when Obi-Wan brought the beverages back and settled with the warm drink in his hands.

"They give you too much datawork."

Cody hummed noncommittally. Thought about it. "I was working on yours."

There was silence, and Cody looked up from his tea over at Obi-Wan.

"You were.. working on mine?"

Cody scooted the centimeter closer to lean onto Obi-Wan's shoulder. He hummed into the fabric of his sleep shirt and sorted his thoughts. "I wanted you to get some more rest. You were running yourself ragged."

"I checked my datawork and there was none left in the evening?"

Cody smirked, because that had been a stroke of genius on his part. He'd bribed Crys to make it look like that.

Obi-Wan wrapped an arm around him and tugged him closer against his side. Cody could only sigh in response.

"You won't tell me how you did it, will you?"

"Nah." Cody mumbled, because a few secrets were his alone. Other secrets he was happy to share though. "Love you."

Obi-Wan huffed softly. "I love you too."

[mychlapci]

Megatitties! Apologies for the 2nd post sent recently cause i wanna add onto the other anon who spoke about the megaboobs.

Megatron would definitely feed his bitlets whenever they demanded it, 100% spoiling them because they’re so demanding and he’s proud of their angry, half-babbled glyphs repeated until their carrier finally scoops them up, opens his chest-plates and let them greedily drink from his nozzles, giving the odd growl when they didnt share with their eachother. Him being oddly soft when one of the sparklings falls asleep, still sleepily trying to hoard a nozzle for itself, that he ends up sitting on his throne, going over some datawork with sleeping bitlets cuddling against his titties <3

Maybe it gets out to the autobots that Megatron has bitties, and now theres faction wide interrogation, clearly led by prowl and Maybe Optimus, because why do 4/5 of the bitties have blue optics. Unless Megatron carries that gene (he 100% doesnt since 1 little bitty has red optics) the sire is an autobot. Prowl has his suspicions and intel-reports show that these tiny bitlets share a decent amount of red..

Nobody admits it, nobody wants to admit it. But when a intel-report comes in saying Megatron is sparked again, all hell breaks loose in the middle of a battlefield. Nobody can do anything to stop prowl as he storms over to Optimus and DEMANDS an explanation. The Decepticons have definitely made bets on who would be bold enough to fuck their leader until he was sparked up, Who would put their spike anywhere near their crazy, stubborn, psychotic leader’s valve? And who would do it TWICE? But now they’re all making bets on how many times both leaders have gone at it away from the battlefield, or even on the battlefield depending on the horny meter. And making bets on when Prowl is gonna crash / bluescreen.

- Chase anon <3

Also, whats your opinion on Megaratch and Megop? I definitely favourite Megaratch but rambling about the two leaders, because technically they can say them fucking isnt treason since they make the rules, is needed.

oh god, Megatron's angry little bitlets rocking red plating and blue optics, which isn't something that the autobots find out until someone who was in Megatron's capture escapes and explains to the high command that one of their comrades, not pointing any fingers, seemed to have put their dick inside Megatron and created these oddly adorable abominations. The decepticons clearly realize that their leader's sparklings were co-created by an autobot, but none of them are going to say anything about it, what are you, nuts? The only one who says anything is Starscream, and he got his ass kicked by Megatron the moment the words “autobot spike” left his mouth. So everyone is just silently placing bets, but they're pretty sure it's gotta be Optimus. They theorized Prowl for a while, but the guy just isn't red enough. 

Prowl literally realizing it must be Optimus the first time he sees the sparklings on a recording Jazz brought back from a spy mission, but he tries to not jump to conclusions. Until rumour comes around that Megatron is sparkled again. This means that sometime during their last big battle, Optimus and Megatron must have strayed into the shadows and their dear, beloved, righteous leader shoved his spike into Megatron, out of all bots, and made him mewl over and over again until his gestation tank was so full his frame had no choice but to start making another batch of bitlets. The first batch is still getting breastfed, Optimus, what the fuck - Prowl, probably, in a fit of rage, not really aware what he's even saying anymore.

also btw Chase anon… why must your brain be so big. i am now forced to admit that megaratch is actually my guilty pleasure ship. I love megop dearly with my life, theyre my toxic old man yaoi, but… shit, you hit the nail on the head. Can I just indulge and say... Prowl screaming at Optimus, demanding to know what was he thinking, and Optimus is thoroughly confused until Prowl just straight up asks him if he'd fucked Megatron. Everyone's so angry that their bets fell through when Optimus swears he didn't. Well... then who did the blue optics and red paint come from?

[burnwater13]

Concept art by Ryan Church for The Mandalorian, Season 1, Episode 4, Sanctuary. A Mandalorian and another fighter are shooting at an Imperial AT-ST. Calendar from DataWorks.

Grogu wondered if they had left Sorgan a little too quickly. After all it was a nice planet. Cara Dune had taken care of that one bounty hunter who had managed to find them on a skug hole in the middle of no where. He and the Mandalorian were beginning to get to know each other a little better. Why leave now? Especially since there was an old piece of Imperial equipment on the planet that had absolutely no business being there. That AT-ST was a problem.

Not in and of itself. Not any more. It was destroyed. It had been touch and go, but eventually the Mandalorian and the fine people of the krill farming collective had managed to deal with it and the Klatooinian raiders who operated it. But it was still a problem. Where did it come from? Why was it there at all? Were there any other pieces of left over Imperial equipment on the planet? 

Grogu was pretty sure that this sort of event fell under the heading of where there is smoke there is fire. He was even willing to fall back to a Jedi standard of risk management which stated that if one thing appeared to be out of place on a planet, an investigation into similar non-sequiturs should be undertaken sooner, rather than later. There was just too much that they hadn’t known about it, plain and simple.

For example, the Klatooinian raiders didn’t appear to have any air support or other mechanized transport of any kind. They had attacked the village on foot. Their only advantage was the AT-ST. So how did they manage to get their hands on an All Terrain Scout Transport to begin with? It seemed unlikely to Grogu that they had somehow brought it with them. Sorgan had such a small population the raiders could have run the whole planet if they’d had the ability to bring it to Sorgan from wherever else they had come from. 

Grogu thought it was likely that the Klatooinians had found the transport on Sorgan. If that was true, why was it even there? Sorgan was not a strategic location for the Old Republic, the Empire, or even the New Republic. At least not an obvious one. It’s two exports were Spotchka, a fermented drink made from krill, and pickled krill sauce. Everything else they had they were importing. But no one involved in the farming collective had imported an AT-ST. If they had, they wouldn’t have needed the Mandalorian’s help in dealing with the Klatooinians. So why was it there?

Grogu suspected that the Empire or one of it’s former, wayward, war lords, had found Sorgan interesting because no one else did. It had a tiny population focused on farming. They had almost no infrastructure. They couldn’t defend themselves against a small band of Klatooinians. It was a perfect planet to set up a secret something on. 

Grogu had no idea what that secret something was and when he tried to engage the Mandalorian in a discussion of unknown risks on Sorgan, he was ignored. Well, that was to be expected. Din Djarin didn’t think that Grogu understood Gal Basic and Grogu really hated trying to communicate in that language. It was so clunky and hard to pronounce and it had a grammar structure that left a lot to be desired. 

If he had been able to have that discussion he would have also brought up a couple of other things that puzzled him. One of them was pretty simple. How had Cara Dune gotten there and why wasn’t she doing anything about the Klatooinians? The other was a little more mystifying. Why fight the Klatooinians from the ground?

The Razor Crest was outfitted with front mounted laser canons. Why bother teaching people how to be soldiers, when they could have just located the AT-ST with the sensors on the Razor Crest and then blasted it to it’s component atoms?

Was the Mandalorian worried that people might realize that he had the ship? Or was he worried that it might get a scratch on it? After all the stuff that Jawas on Arvala-7 had done to the ship was he just trying to protect it from everyone and everything? Grogu supposed that was possible. 

After all the Razor Crest was the Mandalorian’s home. It wasn’t just a ship. All of his stuff was on it and he’d just about lost his mind when the Jawas had taken it apart, forcing him to put it back together with Kuiil’s help. Grogu knew that it wasn’t working quite perfectly, but he had no idea how to help with that. That was a gap in his education that he really wanted to fill in, but so far he hadn’t had a chance. 

Was that it? He just didn’t want his precious ship to be damaged by the AT-ST? Maybe. It really seemed to Grogu that the Mandalorian found a harder way to solve the problem than was strictly necessary, but if that was the Way, fine. That was not a mystery that Grogu needed to solve right now anyway. 

He didn’t need to solve the other one about Cara Dune either. But he wasn’t going to forget about figuring out why the AT-ST had been there at all. Not like everyone else. He owed it to Winta and her mom to determine whether or not they faced a hidden threat. They had been very kind to him and he wasn't going to forget that either.

 Concept art by Ryan Church for The Mandalorian, Season 1, Episode 4, Sanctuary. A Mandalorian and another fighter are shooting at an Imperial AT-ST.

[cyberfeather]

Yaypril Day 22 - Parenting/Mentorship, with Fox, Thorn, Thire, Stone and some Coruscant Guard shinies

Fox is filling some datawork while drinking his caf when a group of young vode approach him. They stay at a reasonable distance, clearly wanting to talk to him, but unwilling to bother him. The commander can’t help but smile at their awkwardness.

With a sigh, he shuts down his holopad and puts the cup on his desk. He might be a busy man, but he always makes sure to find time for his men. And if they got into any kind of trouble, he’d rather learn of it sooner than later.

The moment they notice he isn’t working anymore, they all rush to him.

“Commander Fox! Look, we’re done painting our armors!” One of them happily exclaims, as they all eagerly hold out their newly decorated helmets towards him, so he can take a look.

Oh, so that’s what the commotion is about: some shinies proud to grow out of the name. Fox quickly forgets about his previous fear, fondness replacing the worry he’d been feeling as the young ones all stare at him with expecting eyes.

He takes the time to really look at the designs they came up with. With every new generation of shinies, he gets amazed by how creative they can get. He also tries his hardest to link each pattern to the vod it belongs to. Not only will it make them happy, it will also prove useful when they’re out together on the field and he needs to recognize them quickly.

“That’s some really nice work here. Good job, troopers.” He praises them warmly.

It’s more than enough to have them beaming with joy. They’re always seeking his approval, and as long as they’re not doing something that can put their lives in danger, Fox will gladly grant it.

“Thank you, sir!” The kids all chirp happily.

After that, they politely retreat, aware that while Fox don’t mind their presence, he has work he needs to deal with. The commander lets them go, amused, knowing full well they’ll probably spend the next hour gossiping about this. He’s about to pick up his holopad when he hears snickers coming from behind him. With an exasperated sigh, he turns around, and unsurprisingly finds Thorn, Thire and Stone all staring at him pointedly.

“What?” He asks sharply.

“Nothing, it’s just funny to see you acting like such a dad to the shinies.” Thire teases him.

“I am not, I’m only doing my duty as their commanding officer.” He snaps back, though that doesn’t seem to convince them.

“Sure Foxy, keep telling yourself that,” Thorn laughs.

This time, he rolls his eyes and switches his holopad back on, deciding the best course of action is to ignore his fellow commanders. He may have a soft spot for the kids, but he sure won’t let them use it as leverage against him.

[vroomian]

how do the clones view yrz?

yrz is hard to read when you're not in his head to hear all the screaming so at first they think he's an emotionless detached scary efficient force using droid.

the yrz sets up a schedule that includes like... downtime? strict working hours? recreational places for clones? free access to the wider internet??? good food and drinks? he gets them paid through some datawork magic -- not a lot but still??? they have the lowest casualty rate of all the battalions?? yrz also knows every single clone by name or number and never gets them mixed up.

also the clones witness yrz go into a research spiral and forget to eat for days, and they realize that holy shit the geral might be horrifically competent but he's also dense as a black hole and does not take care of himself.

so. they are actually very very protective of yrz. our jedi now, they collectively decide.

[legobiwan]

could you do 18 and 100 for the trope mash up thing? (And if you want two characters, Obi-wan and Hondo?- I got a little confused with your added instructions to the trope mashup)

Circus AU / Accidentally Saving the Day (Hondo & Obi-wan)

Anon, I had to WORK for this one and even did a little research into circus history since I am woefully undereducated about the topic. I think I’ve found an interesting way of weaving these all together and giving a little bonus at the end. Stick with me here, I need to do a bit of an introduction to get this whole idea going. 

For the purposes of this AU, please assume that the Clone War and all the events surrounding it happened directly after Naboo, meaning everyone is about 10 years younger than they are in canon. Also assume that Qui-gon was not killed on Naboo, although that has little bearing on this particular story.

THIS GOT OUT OF CONTROL. I was expecting to write a fun little 1,000 word thing, not a whole AU concept. But here we are, so….uh…

We’ll see what everyone thinks? Enjoy. And good luck  :D

—-

“How are they doing?” Szimon Tesdak asked, thin, long mustache bobbing up and down at the ends.

The other man patted the Pamaradian prancer’s neck, running his fingers through the thick mane of her hair. The prancer shivered, eyes darting back and forth, hooves tapping nervously on the durasteel floor. The man known as Whisp spoke softly in the creature’s ear, the words foreign to even Szimon’s cosmopolitan ears. A few moments later, the prancer settled, nuzzling her snout into Whisp’s shoulder. 

Whisp turned to face Szimon. “They’re restless,” he said. “Fourteen hours in a cruiser is a bit much for anyone to take.”

Szimon waved the veiled criticism away with a flick of his wrist. Yes, it had been a long journey, but the payoff would - hopefully - be worth it. And they needed the credits - or whatever these people were going to pay. 

“An hour more and we’ll be there,” Szimon said with false confidence.

Whisp stood, crossing his arms tight against his chest, the black-and-crimson fabric of his worn travel tunic wrinkling with the gesture. There was a hint of beard on the young man’s chin, something that, when it grew in, would likely age him a good ten years. The man peered at Szimon with grey-blue eyes like he was trying to ace one of those vision tests at a local spaceport agency. Always looking for hidden meaning, he is. 

And sometimes he finds it. 

At least with the creatures, that had been the case. Two years Whisp had been working for Szimon and never had the older circus master figured out the man’s trick. Szimon had spent his life in the circus, from his childhood on Thybaar right up the grand days of the bright Coruscant lights to his now-ramshackle operation held together by thread, petty theft, and the occasional cashing in on favors owed. 

Szimon had seen it all - and more,  but nothing like Whisp and his ability to communicate with the creatures, like he was reading their minds. “The Whisperer,” the other members had taken to calling him. The moniker had stuck, albeit in shortened form, Whisp’s real name - whatever it had been - long forgotten.

“Remind me again why we’re flying out to the Outer Rim for a show? Seems a bit of an expense when we could just as easily round up a few smaller venues for far less hassle,” Whisp said.

“Ah, Whisp, ever the cynic,” Szimon clapped a meaty hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Don’t think of it as a hassle,” he waved a dramatic hand, as if unveiling something from a behind a curtain. “But as an expansion of our operations.”

Whisp cocked an eyebrow. “Hardly difficult seeing as our operations comprised of three planets the past month, two of which we never actually got to land on.”

Szimon snorted. Well, yes, business had been down because of the war. Szimon himself cared little for the politics of the Republic or the Separatists. A government was a government, with all its little games and corruptions, mazes of betrayal, and endless mountains of datawork. No, Szimon Tesdak would never be chained behind one of those desks. 

But many others were, shackled to unfulfilling jobs and lives, stuck in a desert of mediocrity and boredom. That was where Szimon came in. Unhappy citizens tended to breed unhappy revolts. But give them a nice circus, something to laugh at, a little magic that was absent from their day-to-day existence?

It didn’t really matter who was in power. The problems, the outcomes -they were always the same in the end. 

Still, the war had been disruptive to his business and over the past few months, the “Great Thybaarian Traveling Show” had been forced into semi-refugee status as planet after planet was devastated by the conflict between a mechanical and clone army. Circuses were part of avoiding war, not conducting it.

Szimon shook off the dark thoughts with a wide smile. “Come on now, Whisp. We’re going to make great friends on the Outer Rim. My benefactor has promised a large sum, maybe even a sponsorship if we play our cards right.”

“I thought they were pirates,” Whisp retorted, half-smile playing on his face.

Szimon made an airy gesture, chuckling. “Pirates, embezzlers, Hutts. As long as we get paid, I’ll work for the Sith themselves.”

Whisp tightened under Szimon’s arm, which was wrapped around the thin man’s shoulders. Some unreadable emotion passed over his face, a premonition of a storm. After a moment, he spoke, hesitant. 

“I suppose.”

“That’s the spirit!” Szimon exclaimed, shaking Whisp. “Come on, we have to make preparations for landing and I’m not letting Battlebuzz near those controls again.“

—–

“That was a very impressive show, my friend,” the pirate known as Hondo Ohnaka sidled up to Whisp, unceremoniously dropping into the seat next to him, tankard full of green ale. 

Whisp looked up from his own mug, half-consumed, eyeing the pirate warily. “Thank you,” he replied, adding, “I think,” after a moment’s hesitation. It never hurt to be too cautious around pirates. 

“All those acrobats, all the flips and whooshes.” Hondo made an extravagant gesture with his arm, nearly taking Whisp’s head off. “And the beautiful women dancing to such music, it shouldn’t be allowed!” he grinned, giving Whisp a knowing look. ”My men, they enjoy that - some of my women, too!” Hondo cackled, downing the entirety of his pint in one go, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

“But you, my friend - with the creatures.” The pirate’s voice turned a shade serious and several parsecs more calculating. Whisp bit his lip, steeling himself to steer another drunken conversation away from this dangerous territory. “Yes, the creatures,” Hondo continued, nearly singing. “Now that was something I’ve never seen before. Most beast tamers use weapons.” The pirate made a few motions mimicking a whip. “They use fear and intimidation but you!” He pointed a finger that almost went up Whisp’s nose. “Ah, it was almost like you talked to them with your mind.”

Whisp gave a forced shrug, his pulse starting to race. He needed to stay calm. Needed to focus on the present, not his anxieties. He laughed to himself, bitter, wholly aware of the gross irony of that statement. “Just an ability I’ve had since my youth,” he said, voice flat. “Better me in the circus than those brutish weapons-wielding tamers you mentioned.” Whisp scowled. That much was the truth. Whisp couldn’t abide by their methods, couldn’t stand the way the pain and fear radiated from the abused creatures. He knew he couldn’t save them all, but if he could give a second chance to even a single Borcatu, if he could find a home for those who had been cast out -

Anger trilled at the back Whisp’s brain, a sensuous, lush melody more tempting than any of the ribald pirate ballads in the background.

Hondo beckoned at another Weequay, grabbing two pints from a serving tray, setting one in front of Whisp in an unspoken command. “Yes, your youth. Tell me about that. Your accent is polished, very posh, very Core World.” Very monied. If only, Whisp rued.

It had been too much effort to try and tame his accent, which stood out amongst Szimon’s motley crew of performers like a neon bell weed in the desert. 

Whisp took a long sip of his beverage, smacking his lips together. The new alcohol was a step higher in quality than the dredge he had been drinking before. He peered to Ohnaka on his right, wondering if he was about to be drugged, kidnapped, or worse. Oh well, he thought, drinking some more of the beverage. Might as well enjoy while I can.

“I was brought up in the Core,” Whisp recited, setting his glass down, not even needing to think about the words he had said them so many times. “My family, unfortunately, abandoned me, so I took to farming in the Mid-Rim as a means of sustaining myself. It was there I discovered I had an affinity for creatures and then did some work in healing clinics before the war broke out. The Republic Army took over all the planetary clinics so I was forced into finding…” Whisp bobbed his head, “more creative ways to apply my talents.”

“Interesting,” Hondo noted, his gaze greedy as he looked Whisp up and down. Whisp’s other hand moved to his waist. So much for enjoying. He fingered the blaster he had hidden under his red and silver vest, neatly tucked away in a shoulder holster. 

Hondo held out a hand. “I don’t mean to cause you alarm, my young friend,” he said with a laugh, sitting back in his chair, kicking both feet up on the table. “You can put your blaster away, I only want to talk business.”

Whisp’s hand tightened for a moment before he raised an open palm in a universal gesture of surrender, his brow furrowed.

“What type of business?”

“What type indeed?” Hondo hummed, rocking his feet back and forth in time to the bawdy, clangorous music. Somewhere on the other side of the room, Tergallian and Lopisa had gotten into a knife-throwing contest with some of the pirates. Whisp had a feeling the Weequay had bet on it and that the pirates were about to lose their shirts, pants, shoes, and who knew what else in the deal. Might have to make a quick getaway if there’s enough of a ruckus, Whisp thought, eyeing the locations of the exits and the best strategies to get there without being shot. 

Again, he winced. 

“Oh, you won’t make it out, I promise” Hondo commented, his expression still jovial. “All the exits are under full guard and I guarantee there’s no other way out unless it’s by my command.” He pressed a finger into the table, all traces of humor gone from his voice. “Unless,” he began after a moment, “you are a Jedi.”

Whisp was off his stool in an instant, blaster in hand. Not wanting a direct confrontation, he pointed it towards the ground, the table hiding the weapon from the view of most of the other pirates and circus members. Off in the corner, Szimon’s eyes grew wide as he made a series of furious movements in Whisp’s driection.

“I’m fine,” Whisp signed back in the strange language of gestures known only to those in this particular circus, an easy way to communicate on stage while looking artistic and also a not bad method of either avoiding trouble or sometimes finding it - if their pockets and stomachs were empty enough.

Hondo clasped his hands behind his head, looking unconcerned. “I did not mean to upset you,” he said, lips quirking upwards as if he had just figured out some baffling puzzle. “Only warn you about my security system. But let us not talk of such things, as they disturb you and as my dear mother always said - “ Hondo raised a finger. “Son! You catch more apidactyls with honey. And if that doesn’t work, you can still catch them with a blaster.”

Not worth the fight. Not even sure I’d win this fight, Whisp sighed inwardly. Knowing when he was outmatched, or at least when to choose his battles, Whisp retook his seat with a muttered curse. 

“Fine, then. What do you want from me?”

Hondo smiled. “Ah, now we talk business,” he shrugged. “Nothing much, my friend. And nothing - mostly - to do with your little traveling show. But the circus isn’t going to pay you forever and a man of your many talents - ” Hondo leaned forward, putting both forearms on the table. “Could fetch a pretty hefty payday if he found himself aligned with the right people.”

Whisp’s eyebrows rose. “Are you offering me a job?”

Hondo raised both arms. “Maybe, if you are willing to - “

“Hondo!” A large, burly man came barreling into the room. At once, the music stopped with a zippered rip of a holodisc jarred from its needle, pirates and circus members alike turning to the wide-eyed, heaving pirate. 

“We got trouble out there!”

Immediately, Hondo came to his feet, blaster in hand. “What kind of trouble?”

“I think it’s the Republic! Looks like them, at least. They’re tryin’ a fall back to our compound!”

“We’ll see about that,” Hondo growled, raising his weapon. “No one takes over Hondo Ohnaka’s compound without my permission!”

—-

Blaster fire rang out from all sides, a multicolored lattice of deadly energy. To Whisp’s surprise, Hondo was near the vanguard of the pirates, shooting at the incoming wave of bright, white uniforms with terrifying precision. The pirates were good, Whisp had to give them that, the transition from unruly drunkards to semi-disciplined guerrilla fighters more seamless than Whisp thought possible. 

“Any ideas?” Szimon asked next to him, the pair huddled behind a large boulder, just out of range of the real fighting. Whisp knew Szimon didn’t care one way or another about who won this particular battle - one of thousands Szimon had witnessed over the years. But their ship - their livelihood and home, not to mention only asset - lay just beyond the front line of what Whisp was pretty sure were the infamous clones. If their ship was damaged, or, even worse, destroyed - they were all done for. 

Whisp took in the scene, applying his natural affinity for tactics that had been first discovered early in his tenure with Szimon, an awkward encounter with the Ruuthian mafia, a highly successful performance, and a jar of…requisitioned heeble eggs belonging to Ruuthian mob boss. It had been his quick thinking that had gotten them out of that mess, a plan so crazy it couldn’t do anything but work. From that point on, Whisp had earned the nickname, “The General,” much to his dismay.

Carefully, Whisp extended his senses, not only his eyes and ears but his other senses, the ones he kept locked away from everyone else - everyone else except his creatures. The creatures didn’t care what his status or title was, if he had succeeded or not, if he occasionally broke some moral law that had been branded into his mind as a child. The creatures didn’t judge - they had never judged and found him wanting.

It wasn’t good. For all of Hondo’s firepower, they were still in the bottom of a cereal bowl in the sandy crevasse, the clone troopers above holding higher ground as they advanced on the compound. It didn’t escape Whisp’s notice that the troopers’ blaster bolts were consistently going wide, aimed to injure or impede, but not kill. Some strange long-buried instinct rose in Whisp’s chest as he watched the men, sensing their similarities, down to a genetic level. Was he was supposed to be on their side? Supposed to be fighting with them, supposed to -

An explosion rocked the compound, bringing down metal, stone, and all kinds of debris on the pirates. Hondo barked out more orders, a line of men running to set up what looked like a short-range missile while the rest of the pirates resumed their firefight. 

I’m supposed to be getting us out alive, Whisp fumed at himself. No more distractions. Szimon’s face was covered in dust and sand and for a moment Whisp almost laughed. The circus master looked the spitting image of the Great Lady Devonna in her full makeup. 

“Are you alright, Szimon?” Whisp asked, helping the other man to a seat. 

“I’ve seen worse,” he growled, swiping debris from tassled gold epaulettes perched on bright red shoulders like two Felucian retrine sparrows. “Just do something, Whisp, I’m not getting any younger here.”

Right. Whisp looked again at the fight, the positioning of the men, their ship. The pirates weren’t going to win an all-out firefight, not like this and Whisp had to assume there would be reinforcements coming sooner than later. It was now or…

Whisp frowned. They could wait for the clones to take over the compound and beg for lenience. But knowing the Republic, they’d probably confiscate the ship. And send them to prison. Besides, Whisp’s own presence might raise too many uncomfortable questions, ones he had no desire whatsoever to revisit.

So much for that idea, he rued, while surveying the scene. The clones were all faced towards the fighting, Hondo’s forces feisty enough to keep them fully engaged. There weren’t that many of them, not a full battalion, for certain, which meant it was likely Szimon’s ship was wholly unguarded and not even considered a threat, as it had no visible weaponry. If he could just…

Whisp closed his eyes, feeling for the familiar energies, the outlines of the creatures he cared for, from the smallest snitmouse to the largest morak. Yes, he thought, connecting his mind with the stampede creatures. They would never see it coming. 

A moment later the earth rumbled, the fighting slowing to a small drizzle of blaster fire as the line of clones turned to the oncoming dust storm that hid the three moraks, now prodded on by Whisp, feeding off of his repressed frustration and anger with the representatives of the institution that had driven him to this life in the first place. Of the people who were trying, again, to deprive him of a home, of a place where he belonged.

Unaware the opaque cloud hid anything living, no less animals whose shells repelled most blaster fire - a well-kept secret known not even in the fancy universities on Coruscant - the clones fired to no avail as the moraks descended, sending bodies flying in every direction with desperate shrieks, the remainder of the forces too startled to return fire efficiently. Three bloody minutes later, the remaining clones ran, retreating, leaving the bodies of their fallen comrades as the only evidence of the failed ambush. 

Cheers rose the pirates as they lifted their weapons in glee, somehow manifesting mugs of ale in their hands only a scant minute after they had been involved in a full-bore battle. Whisp slowly climbed from behind the rock, pulling Szimon up with him. The Thybaarian looked at Whisp as if it was the first time he had ever seen him. 

“Was that you?” he asked, eyes trying to pierce through years of layers, of hidden secrets that were the only true skin of the man known as Whisp.

Whisp laughed, uncomfortable. “What? No, I mean - “ 

Szimon shook his head, still dazed. “I always had my suspicions, you know. Not just the creatures, although I’ll grant you that’s one hell of a trick.” He paused, his expression unreadable. “I figured there was some reason you weren’t up with them in that fancy tower, figured it was none of my business, but now - “ Szimon’s eyes turned calculating. “This isn’t just some parlor trick, is it, it’s - “

Whisp backed away, palms splayed in front of him, as if trying to stop the words from entering his space. “No, I’m not. I - “ he looked around, wild, feeling just like one of his creatures, feral and trapped. He was going to lose his home again, once they found out, it was all going to be over. “I never - “ Something snapped, then crackled with inside of Whisp, like the breaking of an invisible, electric bone, sparking flying everywhere.

“I never was one, okay!” he yelled, stomping his foot. “Never was, never will be! That man - that child - died over ten years ago. This -” Whisp gestured angrily at himself. “Is what I am. Nothing. More.”

They had been certain leave Whisp with that message. Nothing more. Just nothing.

“A fascinating story, my young friend,” a low, baritone voice intoned from behind them. “I would be curious to hear more of it.”

Whisp spun around. The man was - there was no other word for it - regal, imperious, commanding the attention of every being in the valley, as he moved towards Whisp and Szimon, long brown cape billowing in the wind, deep violet outfit a perfect fit on his broad chest. Hondo’s troops paused mid-swig, ale running down their necks, and even Hondo himself craned his head forward to get a better look at the newcomer. 

Fifty blaster rifles rose at once.

The man stopped, surveying the ends of the weapons pointed at him with a disaffected gaze. The compound held its breath, sinews tightening around triggers as an unworldly clarity came over the canyon, as if each atom, each sound wave could be made manifest as a physical, tangible reality. And then the man smirked, wholly unconcerned with his vast disadvantage in the situation as the world returned to its customary blur. Whisp and the others exhaled, noisy phlegm crackling up their lungs, dust tingling in their throats.

The stranger took an unhurried step forward raising one hand. 

“You may lower your weapons,” he addressed the pirates, voice betraying nothing but absolute confidence. It occurred to Whisp then that the man had never been at any disadvantage at all. “I intend no harm,” he added in his deep, patrician voice.

Hondo took an equal, ambling step forward, hands clasped behind his back. He circled the newcomer, a hound sniffing for possible quarry, gazing him up and down, as if he were a incoming shipment of contraband. Then, after a moment, Hondo gave a nod, and the blasters summarily disappeared. 

“My, my we are popular today,” the pirate began amiably. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Mister…” Hondo gestured at the other man in question.

“I am here for three reasons,” the stranger announced, ignoring Hondo’s unspoken inquiry. “The first was unwelcome, but unsurprising. My ships were caught unaware, en route from a trade post in the Outer Rim to Jybosti. I carry the identification cards and manifest if you desire proof of my claim. The Republic forced our hand, causing us to land here and engage in an unwanted ground battle which regrettably involved your forces.” The man turned to Hondo, giving an apologetic gesture. Hondo answered with cool regard, his skepticism echoing through the enclosure. Whisp had to agree. No one just happened to go by a place like Florrum without reason. Especially someone like this. 

Still, it wasn’t the stranger that had been one shooting at them. Maybe he was telling the truth. Or at least a part of it.

“Secondly,” the man continued, opening his arms, “I would like to thank you all for, how shall I say - “ He paused for dramatic effect, lifting his chin slightly. Whoever this man was, he knew how to hold a crowd, perhaps even better than Szimon. “Saving the day, however unexpected your heroics may have been.” 

“Yeah, heroes!” One of the pirates bellowed, raising both his blaster and ale mug, several others echoing his enthusiasm with chants of “Heroes!” which quickly devolved into far less elevated rhetoric.

“And thirdly?” Hondo asked, after the raucous had died down. 

“Thirdly,” the man drawled, turning his full attention on Whisp. “I would like to know further details regarding this young man’s story.”

Whisp’s eyes went wide as he took an involuntary step back. “There’s not much more to tell, I’m afraid,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. The words were automatic, a defense mechanism so perfectly tuned, it was nearly instinct. But the strange pressure that had been growing at the back of Whisp’s brain spiked with the lie, leaving a dark, velvet shadow in its wake, something immensely powerful yet a balm to his frayed emotions. It was something…

Whisp gasped, eyes locking with the other man. 

It was something familiar. 

The stranger smiled, all edges as he clasped his hands behind his back, addressing Szimon. “This young man is in your employ?” he asked, brusque, nodding towards Whisp. 

Szimon straightened his jacket and his posture, already sensing a deal in the making as he slipped into tell-tale ringmaster persona. “Yes, sir, best creature tamer I’ve ever seen.”

“Interesting,” the man commented, drawing out the word. “And if he were to leave your employ, how would that affect your operations?”

“Well, I daresay it would be quite the inconvenience,” Szimon began, his confidence building as he fell into the familiar patter of a sales pitch. Whisp barely heard the words, disbelief rising like an angry, red ocean. Would Szimon really do this to him? Now? After everything? 

“…so you see, unless I would be suitably compensated for my losses…”

The grey-haired man leaned forward and whispered something in Szimon’s ear. Szimon’s eyes went moon-wide, his mouth dropping open, words tripping from his mouth. 

“I trust that would be satisfactory?” the man asked.

“I - ah - “ Szimon sent a half-apologetic glance over to Whisp, eyes gleaming with barely-contained avarice. “I think that would be more than fair.”

“Excellent,” the man articulated, ignoring Szimon’s half-gasped ‘thank yous,’ now directing his full attention back to Whisp, drawing himself up to full height. “And you, who are about to enter my employ. What is your name?”

So that was it. No offer, not even a perfunctory question, Whisp’s future once again dictated by the whims of others. Whisp clenched his teeth agains the injustice of his very existence. “Whisp,” he answered, barely keeping the venom from his voice, fists tightening into balls, nails digging into his palms. 

“Your real name,” the man growled. Behind him, Szimon gaped, now looking on with unabashed curiosity, a faint patina of guilt oozing from his sweat-beaded forehead.

Long-buried memories, banished ghosts relegated to an afterlife he had not yet experienced rose in Whisp. He squeezed his eyes shut against the assault of emotions, of the sharp knives of betrayal, the deep pools of loss that threatened to overwhelm him. Had it been so long since he had uttered his own name?

Forcing a noisy breath between his teeth, he steeled himself, meeting the icy gaze of the other man, who considered him with keen, intense interest. 

“My name is Obi-wan Kenobi.”

For a brief second, the Force surged in a strange, dark elation as the stranger’s eyes glimmered with satisfaction. 

“And I am Yan Dooku of Serenno. Come, Obi-wan,” he said, putting an arm around Whisp’s shoulders, leading him away from the confused and quiet scene of pirates, of the doe-eyed stares of what had - for a brief, happy moment - been his family. 

From one family to the next, always a visitor. First the Jedi and Qui-gon Jinn, then Bandomeer. Then clinics, then circuses, and now this. 

With Dooku.

Something settled in Obi-wan’s gut, not unpleasant. For the first time in years, he allowed himself to open to the Force, wholly and without constraint. This felt right, more right than anything else had in Obi-wan’s life. 

“Come,” Dooku repeated, voice warming ever so slightly. “We have much to do.”

[queen-scribbles]

The Good Stuff

Prompted by @storyknitter, though not exactly in keeping with the prompt she pointed me toward(which just means I get to do it later :3)

---

One of the biggest downsides to a career like the military or Intelligence was that sometimes your bad days were so spectacularly awful they made the news and were common knowledge before you even got home. Which was why Briyoni detoured past a liquor store on the way back to her place. And why she dropped half paycheck on a bottle of Corellian Whisky. She had a feeling they would need the good stuff tonight.

She left the bottle on the table before heading back to her room to change into something more comfortable--in this case, shorts and a shirt emblazoned with the fading remnants of her favorite gravball team’s logo. Once comfortable, she returned to slouch in a chair and try to focus on the stack of datawork Garza had given her until Jonas showed up.

She didn’t have to wait long. She hadn’t even finished reading the first report when the door slid open. Jonas stepped inside, running one hand through his hair as he tapped the door controls with the other.

Bry dropped her datapad on the table even as she stood. “Hey, Jo.” He looked awful; disheveled, drained, with a beaut of a bruise coloring his right cheekbone.

“That bad, huh?” he tried to joke, flashing a lopsided smile. It didn’t reach his eyes, though, and faded quickly as Bry stepped forward to hug him. He leaned into the hug his arms settling around her shoulders as he rested his unbruised cheek against her temple. “Guess you saw the news, huh?”

“Yeah.” She rubbed his back. “I know this is a dumb question, but how’re you doing?”

Jonas inhaled deeply and hugged her tighter. “Been better,” he admitted, letting out the breath in a rush. “Also been worse.” He hesitated. “I know we had dinner plans, gorgeous-”

“Already canceled the reservations while I was changin’,” Bry cut him off. She reached up to carefully cup his jaw with one hand. “Figured you’d rather spend the evening in.”

A tired but genuine smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I love you,” he said, quiet yet emphatic, before kissing her forehead. He didn’t fully disengage from the hug when he started for the couch, pulling her along with him. Bry bit back a smile and grabbed her along with him. Bry bit back a smile and grabbed the whisky as they passed the table.

Rather than just drop onto the couch like she expected with how tired he seemed, Jonas sat slowly, pulling off his boots before he leaned back. It made her wonder how many other bruises he’d picked up in the course of today. Bry sat next to him, resting the whisky bottle on the floor as she settled in close enough to twine an arm around his shoulders and play with the hair at the nape of his neck. They sat in silence for several long moments, but she only felt his exhausted tension ease slightly.

“Full blown gang war’s been inevitable for a while now,” she finally said.  “Everyone’s seen it comin’, and that the SIS even tried-”

“Not in the mood to talk about it yet,” Jonas muttered, leaning his head back against the wall.

Bry slid her hand free, tickling the back of his neck as she did. “Sorry, sure.”

“Not something you need to apologize for,” he said. He squeezed her knee affectionately. “Just a topic that needs to wait until at least tomorrow.” 

“That’s fair,” she laughed wryly. “You wanna watch a trashy holovid and get pretty damn drunk?”

Jonas snorted. “And people wonder why I love you.”

Bry grinned. “It’s my charm, of course. And my excellent taste in booze.” She picked up the whisky bottle and balanced it on his knee.

He lifted his head up and leaned forward to read the label, wrapping his hand over hers around the neck, then shot her a disbelieving look. “What made you shell out for kriffin’ Corellian Whisky?”

She shrugged. “I had a feelin’ you’d need the good stuff after a day like today.”

“Thanks, but this is a little too good to waste on drowning out a bad day.” He smiled crookedly and squeezed her hand. “This is the kinda thing you save for something special.”

“I dunno,” Bry said breezily, trying to play casual. “My man walked away from a mess most wouldn’t’ve and some almost didn’t, that seems pretty special to me.”

That got an actual laugh(good, her plan was working) and Jonas wrapped his free arm around her shoulders to pull her in close enough for a kiss. “Thanks, gorgeous, but I really do think we should save this for something a little more widely considered a special occasion. What else d’you keep around here?”

“Alright, handsome, if you insist.” She winked and made a show of extricating herself to carry the whisky over to the cabinet where she kept its like. “We do have other options...”

“What’ve you got?” he asked, leaning back again and rubbing at a spot on his chest she would bet serious credits was another bruise.

“Let’s see...” Bry opened the cabinet, slid the Corellian Whisky in, and looked over the other beverages already stored there. “Got the old standbys; rodian ale, juma juice... half a bottle of Old Janx, uh, Deltron spiced wine...” she leaned around the edge of the cabinet to shoot him a sly look. “I have an almost untouched bottle of daranu in here if you you’re interested, Jo.”

Tired as he was, Jonas lifted his head enough to shoot her a dirty look--before actually seeming to consider it. “Y’know what, after a day like this, I could use something that hits like a kick in the face...”

“Haven’t you had your fill of that already?” she raised a brow pointedly at his bruised cheek.

“This?” Jonas gestured at the large purple-blue mark and waved dismissively.  “This is from the butt end of a scattergun, not someone’s foot.”

“Oh, yes, that’s worlds better,” Bry said dryly as she took him at his word and poured two glasses of daranu. This would make whatever they wound up watching far more entertaining. “Exactly the mental image I needed.”

“All the more reason to get it out of your head as quickly as as possible,” he countered with a tired smile. 

“Touché,” she laughed as she carried both glasses and the bottle back to the couch. “So, whaddya want to watch?” she asked, sinking down next to him and handing over one glass. “Doesn’t have to be a trashy holovid, or even a holovid at all. We can watch a gravball match or somethin’, if you’d rather.”

Jonas took a sip of his drink and shook his head. “Nothing with a chance of  cutting to the news. And for once, nothing... action-y. Beyond that... “ he rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “I’m too tired to pick, so, your call.”

Bry smiled sympathetically and rubbed his arm. “We don’t have to watch something, you know,” she pointed out. “We can just sit here in silence and enjoy a good stiff drink.” Not her preferred way to spend the evening, but if it was what he needed, she’d do it.

He shook his head again, taking a longer drink of daranu this time. “Watching something is fine, it’s just your call what.” 

She pursed her lips in thought, swirled her drink before taking a sip. “Mm. We could drunkenly trash talk our way through the sappy romance Sayna’s  been buggin’ me to watch.”

Jonas let out a soft laugh. “That’s not nice, Bry.”

“Well, then I’m gonna go with rewatching last season’s gravball championship match. We know who won”--she plucked at the front of her shirt with a smirk of lingering triumph--”so we don’t have to pay attention, but it was a good match if we do decide to pay attention.” She took a swig of her drink. “An’ drunkenly commentating gravball is always good.”

He snorted, but there was something forced about his casual tone. “Fine by me.”

“Gravball championship it is,” Bry crowed, and pulled up the recording she’d made of the match. As the familiar opening statistics scrolled across the screen, she settled back in, tucked under Jonas’ arm with her head against his shoulder by sheer habit. Jonas flinched ever so slightly, but settled his arm around her shoulders nevertheless. Their free hands sought each other out by equal habit, fingers intertwining as they rested against Bry’s shoulder.  They sat in comfortable silence for several minutes, as the sportscasters ran through the pregame chatter and the referee stated the game, then through the initial back and forth until Bry’s team scored.

“Right there,” she said, motioning toward the screen with her glass. “That right there is when I knew they were gonna win.” She took a large swallow, knocking she didn’t have long before the effects hit her, but savoring the sweet burn for the moment. “B’fore that was all team loyalty and bravado, but I knew right there that they would win.”

“Confidence has never been a weakness for you,” Jonas muttered, sounding distracted.

Bry shot a concerned glance in his direction. She couldn’t help wondering what the source of that distraction was, but she’d said she wouldn’t ask, so she wouldn’t ask. Instead she squeezed his hand and kept watching the game. 

They watched mostly in silence, and even the breaks in that were mostly her muttering admiration for clever moves or longshot goals she’d known were coming. Daranu was a strong drink once it kicked in, so they nursed each round, but the bottle was still over halfway empty(less than half full, Bry thought tipsily) when the game entered its third quarter and she felt Jonas finally truly relax. Maybe it was that, maybe it was the booze, maybe she was just turning into one of those worrywart fianceés she always rolled her eyes at in holovids. But she had to ask.

“Hey, Jo,” she began hesitantly, brushing her thumb softly over his knuckles. His hm? of acknowledgement was so faint she first wondered if she’d woken him up and then if she’d imagined it, but she pressed on. “Are... have bad days always been like this?”

“Nah, gorgeous.” He shifted and she faintly felt him kiss the top of her head. “I used to do my drinking alone.” A wry snort. “Occasionally with smuggled goods in a medcenter room.”

It was good to hear an edge of his usual humor creeping back into his voice. Even if  the implications of his words made her roll her eyes. “Jonas.”

“Hazard of the job, Bry.” Jonas slipped his hand free of hers and withdrew it enough to run his fingers lazily through her hair. “Even if it’s nowhere near the risk factor of yours, stuff does still happen.” 

“I know...” Her words trailed off, distracted by a cheer from the vidscreen. When she looked back over, he was watching her, one side of his mouth tugging up in the faintest hint of a smile. “What?”

“Right there,” he said, nodding toward the replay of the absolutely beautiful goal that had just been scored. “When we watched this live, you got  so excited at that score, you almost elbowed me in the face.” His smile widened, the flickering light of the vidscreen casting his features in sharp relief with pale blue light. That was one of the first moments some part of me realized we weren’t just another nothing serious. I almost got elbowed in the face on my own couch, and all I could think was how damn happy you looked your team was winning.”

Bry smirked. “I’ll hafta remember daranu makes you sappy as hell, Balkar.” She leaned in to kiss him.

“Daranu, the long hard day, the good company...” His fingers grazed her cheek.  “Take your pick.”

“Or maybe you’re always this sappy and just can’t hide it once there’s enough of the good stuff in ya?” She waggled her eyebrows and nudged the bottle.

“If I say yes, is daranu going to become your new weapon of choice?” He stole a slow, lingering kiss.

“Oh, darling, with you, it already is,” she laughed, reaching over to cup his jaw and curl her fingers around the back of his neck to pull him into an even longer kiss.  “Well, one of many,” she corrected herself as she resumed her original position. “Glad I make the hard days a little better in return, at least. You know, for all the teasing about sappiness.”

“It’s more than a little,” Jonas murmured, gratitude and relief oozing from the words. “You’re much better company than I ever expected to have.”

Bry simply hummed in reply, and they returned to silence for the rest of the game, then sat there still after it was finished. But it was comfortable silence, and he’d finally relaxed, so not a bad end to the day, even if it was long and hard enough they both drifted off on the couch, still nestled together.

[lazinesswrites]

✨Fic Writing Review 2023✨

I saw the lovely @whimsicalmeerkat do this recently, and they did the 'if you wanna do this you're tagged' thing, so! Here we go! On Jan 1st, because I haven't exactly had the time to sit down and do something like this in the last few days 😅

Words

56,557 words posted on AO3

27 works posted or updated on AO3

Fandoms & Ships Represented:

Shadowhunters (2x Malec)

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (19x Platonic Batch, 1x pre-relationship Crosshair x Captain Rex, 1x Crosshair & Commander Mayday)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (4x Obi-Wan Kenobi x Commander Cody, 1x gen)

The Shadowhunter Chronicles (1x gen)

Top Fics by Kudos

"I wouldn't do that if I were you" + Loth-Cat (SW:TCW, CodyWan, accidental Loth-Cat acquisition, Loth-Cat shenaningans)

Home In Your Arms (SW:TBB, Cross finds and rejoins the Batch, gets some much-needed sleep and hugs)

Won't you take me home ('cause lately I've been losing on my own) (SW:TBB, The Outpost canon divergence, Mayday lives, Crosshair - and Mayday - come home)

Labor of love is ours to endure (SW:TBB, Kamino Lost canon divergence, formerly known as 'The Power of Hugs', Cross rejoins the Batch)

Datawork and Drinks (SW:TCW, pre-CodyWan, Obi-Wan makes caf for Cody, lots of pining, based on this amazing comic by starwarjotta)

My Fandom Fic Events in 2023

I participated in a bunch of different -tober events in 2023, though there's still 'only' 15 works in the series I made on Ao3 for them. Links for the events here on tumblr, and their Ao3 collections when applicable:

Fictober (Ao3 collection Fictober23)

Angstober (A03 collection Angstober2023)

OC-tober

StarWarsTober

Malectober (Ao3 collection Malectober2023)

I technically also participated in Comfortember, though I haven't put the one fic I've posted for it in the Ao3 collection, so. I do have another fic mostly-written for one of these prompts, though it's not quite ready for posting yet.

Upcoming 2024 Events & Projects

I... haven't exactly planned anything yet. There's a few things I'm considering though, like this Cody-day bingo, or this Waxer*Boil Month. Various month-events, like fictober, comfortember etc. And of course I still plan on doing Kedreeva's WIP Wednesday Ask Game as many Wednesdays as I can, and maybe other weekly things like that.

Rules & Tags

Not sure there really are any rules to this, you can be as thorough or brief as you want. I'm also not gonna tag anyone specifically, but if you see this and want to do it too - you're tagged!

[venatohru]

Breathe

When Mitaka is summoned to Hux's chambers following a series of errors, he assumes the worst - but the general has other plans for him.

Pt. 4: inspire

(previous)

A month passed, yet they were barely any closer to flushing out the remnants of the Resistance, and Kylo Ren was as volatile as the kyber crystal in his saber.

Luckily, Mitaka had been able to avoid the Supreme Leader -  Hux had been happy to assist in managing his schedule so that the two of them were unlikely to cross paths. He knew Hux didn’t have that luxury, and hoped he wasn’t suffering too much. He’d been quieter recently, and Mitaka wasn’t sure he liked that.

He found Hux in the officer’s lounge, sipping an outrageous looking cocktail that made Mitaka think the server droid might be malfunctioning (he made a note to inform engineering of this hiccup).

“Lieutenant, care to join me?” Hux indicated the empty seat next to him. Mitaka wasn’t scheduled to liaise with the general for another day, but sharing a drink (even a very strangely coloured one) with him seemed more appealing than going over datawork alone in his quarters - that could wait.

“Of course.” He removed his hat, setting it down on a surface so polished that he could see his reflection. “I’ll have...whatever it is you’re having.” He was curious , damn it, and Hux’s amused look only encouraged that curiosity.

“A kiss on the lips,” he said to the droid behind the bar. Mitaka tried to see what went in the drink but the problem with observing droids was that they invariably worked much more efficiently than the majority of organic beings. He made a mental note of that. It might be something he could use to his advantage in future...at least, if he was able to figure out how to override some of those inconvenient commands that prevented them from harming officers.

The drink tasted better than he’d anticipated. Though he struggled to identify the exact ingredients, he did recognise white rum and some kind of sweet berry - it wasn’t at all the kind of thing he’d normally seen Hux drinking, and the general was a creature of habit. If it had been the only thing that seemed off about him lately, he might have chalked it up to nothing more than a desire to break one’s routine. He’d seen other officers, themselves just as prim and proper as General Hux, behave in this way on occasion. But all his instincts told him this was different.

He tried to pinpoint the moment it started to matter to him, and he couldn’t. Watching Hux’s slim, gloved fingers twirling a ridiculous miniature umbrella...Mitaka realised that at some point he’d stopped thinking of him only as his commanding officer, or as the brilliant but anxious boy he remembered from the Academy.

“Your neck, Sir.” Sitting so close together, he could see the dark red bruises peeking out from beneath Hux’s collar. The injury couldn’t be more than a few hours old. His hand found Hux’s once again, as they had done four weeks ago in the general’s chambers. “I...have some more kathbane oil in my quarters, and some, um, whisky. That is, if-” He might have regretted the offer almost as soon as it slipped out from his overeager lips...if Hux hadn’t immediately downed his drink, fingers still entwined with his as he stood up.

[verdigrisprowl]

Dec 24 Dancitron Movie Night - Gotham s2 e4-6

Primus showed up and made things snow. There was general consternation. Primus assured them that the snow wasn’t acidic.

Prowl only vaguely liked that the new police chief in the show was fighting corruption, but he was doing it so badly and introducing so many new bad aspects to the police that he couldn’t really support them.

Soundwave finally let Prowl help clean after the show.

Today NoodlesAtNight 7:31 pm ((A note - I don't know how many will be around tonight, we'll see what's what by 8)) SCProwl 7:31 pm ((k SpecsTheSpectralDragon 7:32 pm ((tbh I'm not sure how long I'll be around either)) ((it's kinda up in the air rn- the Family Obligations might call me away) NoodlesAtNight 7:32 pm ((perfectly understandable)) NoodlesAtNight 7:34 pm *For the moment, Soundwave will be poking around arranging things. He's got the usual array of snacks and drinks out, and is draped across his couch. That's right, he's doing all of this by feeler.* SCProwl 7:43 pm *arrives early for a change* NoodlesAtNight 7:43 pm [[Nothing to do at the police station?]] Angorumoa 7:44 pm [*bleps at the group then goes to let the doggo out*] NoodlesAtNight 7:44 pm ((blep! hi doggo)) SCProwl 7:45 pm I was able to finish my datawork a little earlier. We've finally gotten our system up and running. Angorumoa 7:46 pm [Oh geeze. SNOW OUTSIDE. Okay I may need to shovel it off the porch before I figure out who joins. A good two inches have built up. Maybe three.] Boomtank 7:46 pm ((HAH SCProwl 7:46 pm ((nice NoodlesAtNight 7:46 pm ((snooooow i'm so jealous. good luck))

*Soundwave tilts his helm.* [[Bevel making herself useful, is she?]] Angorumoa 7:47 pm [And YOU, aubade, wee need to see Bumblebee some monday] Boomtank 7:47 pm ((Like when I'm not recovering from mushing my car? Angorumoa 7:47 pm [Yes. THE ONE TIME YOU DON'T HAVE CAFFINE] Boomtank 7:47 pm ((yeah, that was....embarrassing Boomtank 7:48 pm ((hopefully it's still in theaters by the time I get my car fixed verdigrisprowl 7:48 pm *arrives* SCProwl 7:48 pm Well, she's prone to listening to music in at least one audial but she organizes data more efficiently than any police filing clerk I've ever seen. verdigrisprowl 7:49 pm *efficient data organization?* Who are we talking about? Boomtank 7:49 pm -And Blaster is just...going to drop into a seat- SCProwl 7:49 pm Bevel. NoodlesAtNight 7:49 pm [[You say that as though you disapprove.]] *He, obviously, does not.*

[[Ah. And your alternate has arrived.]] *Pings Prowl hello and nods to Blaster. Good evening, there.* verdigrisprowl 7:49 pm Ah. Really? Huh. Boomtank 7:50 pm -tired wave back. Hello.- SpecsTheSpectralDragon 7:50 pm *the dragon shows up- her cast is /finally/ off, praise the goddess! she's brought snacks for Soundwave, and she can put them where they belong!* Hello, Soundwave, everyone! NoodlesAtNight 7:50 pm [[Greetings, dragon. Ah - no medical equipment? Healed at last?]] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 7:52 pm All bones are back to where they belong! *the dragon extends her wing out fully to show off* I should try and be careful with it, but I'm cleared to fly short distances and everything! verdigrisprowl 7:52 pm *... where were the bones last time* NoodlesAtNight 7:52 pm *Soundwave dutifully admires the healed wing while fetching a hot drink for Blaster with a feeler. Poor mech always looks like he's about to perish on the spot.* Boomtank 7:53 pm -he's dealing with stubborn neutrals that think they know more than they actually do- NoodlesAtNight 7:54 pm *That's a good question. Somewhere else in the wing he supposes.* verdigrisprowl 7:54 pm *ain't that just how neutrals are.* Angorumoa 7:55 pm [doggo in and snow shovelled] NoodlesAtNight 7:56 pm ((yay! wb)) SpecsTheSpectralDragon 7:56 pm *they were broken in half, so trying to escape out the membrane. aka, not where they needed to be.* Boomtank 7:56 pm -Yep. If it would not be bad form, he'd call them out on it- Angorumoa 7:56 pm [Half tempted to go HEY LET IT SNOW ON CYBERTRON] Boomtank 7:56 pm -well, more than he already did today- ((SNOW)) verdigrisprowl 7:56 pm ((that'd be awful for the natural landscape)) Angorumoa 7:57 pm [shhhh it'd be fine SCProwl 7:57 pm *nods to alternate and finds her seat while she thinks how to word a reply to Soundwave's comment* I don't disapprove. It doesn't distract her from what she's doing and I also perform a number of tasks simultaneously. Mine just don't tend to result in outbursts of singing. NoodlesAtNight 7:57 pm ((soundwave will huddled indoors under 20 tarps and hiss at the windows)) Boomtank 7:58 pm -still going to take the drink and give Soundwave a tired smile- Thanks. Angorumoa 7:58 pm [He'll have to wear an ugly sweater] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 7:58 pm ((the dragon will show up with her rebreather and roll around outside the windows)) verdigrisprowl 7:58 pm ((oh no)) ((poor soundwave)) ((i guess)) ((he'll just)) Angorumoa 7:58 pm [Prowl gets one too] verdigrisprowl 7:58 pm ((have to cuddle with prowl)) ((for warmth)) SpecsTheSpectralDragon 7:58 pm ((ohohohoho)) Angorumoa 7:58 pm [Everyone gets ugly sweaters NoodlesAtNight 7:58 pm ((oh no how terrible. how will he ever stop laughing at the ugly sweater)) SCProwl 7:59 pm ((Prowl wouldn't mind a very mild acidic snowfall as she'd totally collect some to add to her acid collection Boomtank 7:59 pm ((Primus, don't do that. Angorumoa 7:59 pm [ouo [*going to do it* NoodlesAtNight 7:59 pm ((prowl just gobbling snow "thanks for the weaponry refill god" )) SpecsTheSpectralDragon 7:59 pm ((...oh, right. cybertronian precipitation is acidic)) Boomtank 7:59 pm ((do not SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:00 pm ((the dragon maybe... should not roll in that.)) Angorumoa 8:00 pm [*GUNNA DO IT* SCProwl 8:00 pm ((yeah that'd be bad Boomtank 8:00 pm ((and yes, unless we want dragon soup SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:00 pm ((no dragon soop for you)) Boomtank 8:00 pm ((BAD PRIMUS NoodlesAtNight 8:00 pm ((OKAY there is actually enough of a crowd tonight for us to progress thru s2 so i don't need to switch to an xmas cartoon. thankfully, because i have already watched so many aha)) Angorumoa 8:00 pm [christmassss] Boomtank 8:01 pm ((oh right, feck, that's tomorrow Angorumoa 8:01 pm *Totally debatable snow outside and ugly sweaters for everyone. Totally debatable whether reality or not.* SCProwl 8:01 pm ((tho explaining it ic would be funny "uh, it's the only signal I could get from earth aside from some very annoying speech by a very orange man Boomtank 8:01 pm ((HAH ((yes SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:02 pm ((boo, no orange man)) ((he's bad)) Boomtank 8:02 pm (('humans can come in that color?' NoodlesAtNight 8:02 pm ((we won't have the orange man here tonight. or any night. all right, warnings: GOTHAM S2 4-6 // Violence, blood, death, police militarization (trust me, it won't work out), poor depictions of mental illnesses, foul language. Alfred being a dick to Selina, Nice Guy Nygma, Butch's brainwashing, 'family' abuse, a loose eye, severed limbs, charred humans, prison comments I thhhink are in bad taste.)) ((but also more tabitha so like it evens out.)) verdigrisprowl 8:03 pm ((i choose to believe that all transformers continuities take place in universes where someone mildly more tolerable was elected SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:03 pm ((it's what we deserve)) Boomtank 8:03 pm ((yes Angorumoa 8:03 pm [I know noooothing about Gotham, so ey, all the confusion on my end. Also it may or may not be snowing outside with suddenly ugly sweaters on robots] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:03 pm ((does the dragon get a sweater)) Angorumoa 8:03 pm [of course] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:04 pm ((fuck yeah)) Boomtank 8:04 pm ((GDI PRIMUS Angorumoa 8:04 pm [with proper wing openings] SCProwl 8:04 pm ((TF timelines are the good timeline? verdigrisprowl 8:04 pm ((well, depending on the timeline, the decepticons MIGHT kill billions of people, so, yknow)) ((*weighing scales gesture*)) SCProwl 8:04 pm ((fair point SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:05 pm ((yeah but megatron does a hit and run on the orange man and kills him instantly so)) ((also soundwave steals all of jeff bezos' assets)) NoodlesAtNight 8:05 pm ((basically what you need to know is: bruce is a baby, he's trying to find out who killed his parents, penguin's a boss, and a new arrival in town is trying to get revenge for his family's erasure in history by installing himself in a position of power. nygma's slowly sliding into riddler land and there's something shady going down at wayne enterprises. there you go!)) SCProwl 8:05 pm ((that's why Soundwave's so rich Angorumoa 8:06 pm [Stuff! I may debatable mute and watch my= dog wtf are you doing out there] SCProwl 8:06 pm Oh, we're watching this again? Boomtank 8:06 pm ((ooooi NoodlesAtNight 8:06 pm ((soundwave just sells his rations of rare metals he doesn't like and makes his money that way)) [[Yes. The story continues.]] SCProwl 8:07 pm May I have a visual? Angorumoa 8:07 pm *distant nooting outside* verdigrisprowl 8:07 pm *pings video* NoodlesAtNight 8:07 pm [[Of course. One mom-- those blasted flobsters are back.]] verdigrisprowl 8:07 pm Got it. NoodlesAtNight 8:07 pm [[Ravage! Ravage, if you please.]] =On it.=- SCProwl 8:07 pm *accepts with a grateful ping* NoodlesAtNight 8:07 pm [[Ah, thank you.]] verdigrisprowl 8:08 pm *... leans on soundwave* Boomtank 8:08 pm -tucking legs under him at nooting- NoodlesAtNight 8:08 pm *Lean! Good. Comfortable.* SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:08 pm *the dragon clambers up onto the arm of the couch to hang out with Soundwave, if that's okay. she'd hunt flobsters, but...* SCProwl 8:08 pm I suppose that's one way to get attention. NoodlesAtNight 8:08 pm *She is absolutely welcome up there.* [[Do not worry. We will not allow any flobsters inside. Nobody will be electrocuted tonight.]] verdigrisprowl 8:08 pm *...... caaaaasually laces hands around Soundwave's arm.* NoodlesAtNight 8:09 pm *Caaaaaasually settles a hand on those hands. Ahh.* Angorumoa 8:09 pm *Ravage can get a nice lobster snack outdoors. And possibly get a ride on back inside cause Primus just strolls in like a god does.* NoodlesAtNight 8:09 pm [[He hopes someone doesn't have to pay for that chair.]] Boomtank 8:09 pm I'd appreciate them remaining outside verdigrisprowl 8:09 pm Taxpayers. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:09 pm If they sneak in, I'll fight them. *flobsters would probably be quite a fight for a fox-sized dragon.* NoodlesAtNight 8:10 pm *Ravage will 100% ride on Primus. He likes to feel tall.* [[Oh, he likes this one.]] SCProwl 8:10 pm Agreed. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:11 pm *Ravage is supremely valid* verdigrisprowl 8:12 pm ... I'm... skeptical of the long-term efficacy of this approach. Angorumoa 8:13 pm *Ravage can chill out up on his shoulders then. And get a scritch if he's feeling it while Primus may need to duck to actually get inside. For reasons he's a tad taller than usual. And just way late on, like, /everything/ else.* NoodlesAtNight 8:13 pm ((frick is it skipping/blanking)) verdigrisprowl 8:13 pm It's the correct thing to do but I don't think that's the correct way to achieve it. verdigrisprowl 8:14 pm ((it's fine here)) NoodlesAtNight 8:14 pm [[What are the flaws in his approach?]] *Curious.* verdigrisprowl 8:14 pm And I'm a /little/ bit skeptical of anyone who talks about bringing back respect for law and order. NoodlesAtNight 8:16 pm [[Elaborate?]] *That is not something he expected a cop to say. He'd like to know why - not that he disagrees.* verdigrisprowl 8:16 pm For one thing, he only fired a small fraction of the corrupt cops. The rest are now on their toes and ready to team up against someone who threatens their way of life. NoodlesAtNight 8:18 pm [[Covering for one another, or harming him? Both?]] verdigrisprowl 8:18 pm Both. Boomtank 8:18 pm -just going to curl up in the seat now, listening more to the room than the show- SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:18 pm And once again, Penguin showing off his weakness comes to bite him. NoodlesAtNight 8:19 pm [[He really should have sent her somewhere safe.]] verdigrisprowl 8:19 pm And in my experience, when I've met enforcers who talk about making the civilians respect them, they're USUALLY not talking about becoming more respectable. Oh look, he's already talking about murdering suspects. What a surprise. SCProwl 8:19 pm I changed my mind. NoodlesAtNight 8:19 pm [[And he no longer likes this human.]] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:19 pm I'm not sure if safe is "far away" or "at his side at all times," really. Neither one seems to appeal. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:20 pm *bares fangs* Bite his throat out. NoodlesAtNight 8:20 pm [[Far away. She can't be hurt if no one can locate her.]] [[For Primus' sake. War does not make a fantastic police officer.]] Angorumoa 8:21 pm *Primus put a warm blanket around Blaster's shoulders. Give him something to hold onto while he listened to the few mechs, and one dragon, gathered on the eve.* SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:21 pm War makes horrors and nightmares. NoodlesAtNight 8:22 pm [[...He apologizes for cursing.]] *To Primus.* [[Agreed, dragon.]] verdigrisprowl 8:22 pm His hard stance against corruption is the only thing going for him. Boomtank 8:22 pm -ooooh, blanket, don't mind as he hides in it now- Thanks SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:22 pm *the dragon looks over, sees Primus, and just about jumps out of her fur* ... verdigrisprowl 8:22 pm Wh—? *glances for who Soundwave's apologizing to.* Oh. Hi. verdigrisprowl 8:23 pm So. All angry, half of them out for revenge. Angorumoa 8:23 pm *Casual shrug to Soundwave. By far not the worse he's heard. Gives Blaster a little rub on the helm then looks over at the others.* Amusing that only now you realize I'm here. SCProwl 8:23 pm They should be addressing the rampant poverty in this city, not preparing a military squad to murder criminals. verdigrisprowl 8:24 pm You don't— Newbs don't join strike forces! NoodlesAtNight 8:24 pm [[He dreams himself a warlord. Hmph.]]

[[And he knew you were here. Ravage informed him. Thank you for your presence.]] SCProwl 8:24 pm Your officers. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:24 pm *the dragon sniffs the air curiously. smells like Primus.* ...Hi. verdigrisprowl 8:24 pm "What do we have to l—"?! You have LIVES to lose! Theirs AND those of the people they're going to be pointing guns at! Angorumoa 8:25 pm Hello. You know it is snowing? NoodlesAtNight 8:25 pm [[It -- /what?/ ]] SCProwl 8:25 pm It's--what? SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:25 pm *that gets the dragon's interest* Snow?! SCProwl 8:25 pm No! Boomtank 8:25 pm -hums and settles- You tend to do that thing where you....what SCProwl 8:25 pm Do not go outside. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:25 pm Is it acid snow? Can I play in it? NoodlesAtNight 8:25 pm *Twists to look through the doors.* [[...He'll pencil in a repaint.]] Angorumoa 8:25 pm No. Yes. NoodlesAtNight 8:25 pm [[No! Do not play in it!]] verdigrisprowl 8:25 pm *glances at the door before remembering his alternate and turning back to the screen.* Boomtank 8:26 pm Primus. Primus why? SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:26 pm *wait. Primus said yes. Soundwave said no. confusion.* NoodlesAtNight 8:26 pm *Already inching closer to Prowl.*

[[He's going to have to replace the doors again too.]] *Long-suffering vent. Oh well. At least Buzzsaw makes good use of the glass scraps.* Angorumoa 8:27 pm *Shrugs.* I had a bit... excess power that needed an outlet. It is only limited to about... thirty feet in a circle outside. Boomtank 8:27 pm Primus that was a bad idea. verdigrisprowl 8:27 pm Did it have to be a circle that's populated? SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:28 pm ...Docent! Don't hit a hatchling! verdigrisprowl 8:28 pm She murdered someone. NoodlesAtNight 8:28 pm [[Who was going to have them murdered first.]] SCProwl 8:28 pm *Prowl's vents stutter at the mention of Primus* Angorumoa 8:29 pm No one was around other than a flobster that Ravage ate. Not going to do any harm to the area. verdigrisprowl 8:29 pm ... She /murdered/ someone. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:29 pm So he's going to sock a hatchling in the face? That doesn't teach her anything but not to trust him. verdigrisprowl 8:30 pm I don't think a punch is too harsh for a murderer. Angorumoa 8:30 pm [we lost a noodle] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:30 pm ((oh shit soundwave's gone)) ((ANARCHY)) ((set the chat on fire)) NoodlesAtNight 8:30 pm ((trying to make my screen stop dying sorry)) Boomtank 8:30 pm Primus, what about this area? We're kinda in it? Aren't we? SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:30 pm ((valid)) SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:31 pm *guh. the riddling human disappoints her.* verdigrisprowl 8:31 pm And why spend that energy on snow instead of... making more energon? Angorumoa 8:31 pm I said thirty /feet/, not miles. It isn't a massive area. The dragon go roll around in the snow if she wishes to. Not going to cause harm to her nor the landscape. NoodlesAtNight 8:32 pm [[...If it isn't acidic, then very well.]] verdigrisprowl 8:32 pm That's gonna rust. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:32 pm *excuse the dragon as she /zooms/ out the door. SNOW TIME.* NoodlesAtNight 8:33 pm [[We will scrub it in the morning. The dragon has been injured for weeks. He would see her enjoy herself.]] Angorumoa 8:33 pm You know energon in most cases is my /blood/? And no it wont. It is on a self recycling loop. Not actually touching the ground. verdigrisprowl 8:33 pm You know that energon is ALL our blood? NoodlesAtNight 8:34 pm ((i'm gonna restart computer, brb - scp has remote)) SCProwl 8:34 pm I'm going outside. If you don't mind, I'll keep the video connection, Captain? verdigrisprowl 8:34 pm Go ahead. It won't be disorienting? Boomtank 8:35 pm -finishes drink and kinda hides under the blanket now- SCProwl 8:35 pm Better than-- *remembers the last time she didn't fall into everyone's deluded belief that this person is Primus* --i'll be fine. I need air. verdigrisprowl 8:35 pm Very well. Angorumoa 8:35 pm *Chin stroke.* I do, Prowl. I also remember the time I was shedding energon as a naga... Those were very early and interesting days when the Grays were more active. SCProwl 8:36 pm *stands up and leaves* Angorumoa 8:36 pm [Those were very weird but fun days. M!A everywhere.] verdigrisprowl 8:37 pm A "naga"? SCProwl 8:38 pm *ducks out into the snow and immediately starts scanning what's already fallen for acidity* Angorumoa 8:38 pm A naga is a hybrid of a snake and a human, somewhat. From the chest up is the humanoid and the bottom is a long snake of varying description. [Unrelated: STUPIDCRICKETSINMYEARS] SCProwl 8:38 pm ((Zsasz~~~ SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:38 pm *the dragon is rolling around and kicking snow into the air* Angorumoa 8:38 pm [Tinnitus I think is goddamn horrible] verdigrisprowl 8:39 pm Sorry, snake and a "human"? You mean, from the chest up, it looks like, uh...... /us/? Boomtank 8:39 pm Grayfaces got to you too? Angorumoa 8:40 pm *The snow outside was just that, snow. 'Fluffy' frozen water that melted when it warmed. It melted faster while the dragon rolled about in it.*

Ah, yes. Sorry. It was one of the many hybrid designs that were going around. Less popular than the mer. verdigrisprowl 8:40 pm Well, there's one new rookie down. verdigrisprowl 8:41 pm *gives him a quick funny look for comparing the anatomy to aliens instead of, like, themselves; but then back to the movie.* SCProwl 8:41 pm *low acidity, then. so her paint won't get ruined then, that's fine. uses her hand to guide her to a good place to lean against the wall* You're missing the show. Angorumoa 8:42 pm *Shrug. They shared the bipedal shape with humans and certain other species that were like that. It was a common design that was semi-efficient. Having free front forelimbs was a very good thing for a species.* NoodlesAtNight 8:42 pm *Soundwave startles back to awareness. Had to reassure the minicon complex that the snow was expected and not dangerous.* Boomtank 8:42 pm -don't mind as he gets up to trot outside to see the snow, blanket trailing behind him- SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:43 pm *the dragon mrrps, looking over at Not-VerdigrisProwl Prowl* It's nice to see snow here. There's plenty of it at home, but... verdigrisprowl 8:43 pm She shouldn't be there. He's a mass of stitched-together red flags. NoodlesAtNight 8:43 pm [[No, she shouldn't. She should have left when she got up.]] NoodlesAtNight 8:44 pm *Somewhat worried now.* SCProwl 8:45 pm Is it acidic on your planet as well? *tenses slightly at Blaster walking back out, recognizing him by the sounds he's making* It's low-acidity, Blaster. Angorumoa 8:45 pm *Might end up transforming the snow into a proper resource at the end of the night since he had been putting his energy into it. It wouldn't just be a 'pretty' waste.* Boomtank 8:45 pm Oh. Nice. Hi. Sorry if I startled you. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:46 pm It's not as acidic as normal Cybertronian rain. It's more or less the typical pH of pure water. verdigrisprowl 8:46 pm ... He could at least tell Gym why he's doing it. Maybe not who's got the hostage, but. SCProwl 8:46 pm It's fine. Water can be quite acidic to some species actually. NoodlesAtNight 8:47 pm *Notices most everyone has gone outside.*

*.........Settles up right proper against Prowl. Maybe a tiny shoulder nip. Not like anyone but Primus is watching anyway* verdigrisprowl 8:48 pm *if he weren't on camera duty, he'd return it as a kiss.* NoodlesAtNight 8:48 pm *The thought is appreciated*

[[...He can understand the Penguin's rage, in a way. He does not have a mother, but - well. He has others.]] Boomtank 8:49 pm -flops more than sits on ground- I mean, the dragon isn't in pain, so... Angorumoa 8:49 pm *Even then is only half paying attention. Prowl and Soundwave were cute. A good pair they made for helping each other and more. Don't mind his grin. Thinking to himself while keeping track of the outside conversation.* NoodlesAtNight 8:50 pm [[And Theo plays a dangerous game. Penguin /did/ erase all the competition in a year.]] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:50 pm Right, it can be. I forget, sometimes. verdigrisprowl 8:51 pm *taps Soundwave's arm* Just so you're forewarned, if someone ever takes you hostage, I'm continuing with business as usual and taking it on faith that you can extract yourself. SCProwl 8:51 pm What's your planet like? It's organic, yes? SCProwl 8:52 pm *would appreciate alternate not kissing Soundwave if she knew about it* NoodlesAtNight 8:53 pm *Glances over.* [[He accepts this warning and the inherent compliment. Though he does hope that you will mind any messages he sends if - for some rare reason - he cannot get out on his own.]] *Pause.* [[Would you like him to react similarly, or...?]] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:53 pm Yes, it is. It's rather different, really. It was very weird to see stars for the first time- I come from a pocket dimension, as they're called, so there's been only the one solar system for my entire life. It's a cold planet, so more snow than rain. But we make it work. We got to the moon! And built a space elevator and satellites to facilitate transit. SCProwl 8:55 pm A pocket dimension. Your universe has a reachable stopping point? Is that how you were able to access other universes? verdigrisprowl 8:55 pm Depends on what I have to do to get you out. I'm not interested in being blackmailed. NoodlesAtNight 8:56 pm [[Why would he blackmail you?]] verdigrisprowl 8:56 pm No, whoever has you hostage. Presumably, if you're being kept hostage and I'm being told and you can't get out, it's because they're trying to use you to get something out of me. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:56 pm Ah... I mean, technically, it might? I haven't found it yet. What happened was that an alternate of the Soundwave hosting us was accidentally sent to my dimension- which was a very cruel thing to do, because there were defense systems emplaced that could well have killed him, and there's no energon there. SCProwl 8:56 pm *huffs in annoyance at Galavan's acting* Boomtank 8:57 pm -curious blink at the other Prowl- Something happen? NoodlesAtNight 8:57 pm [[Ah. Well, you needn't kill anyone. Should it come to that, his deployers would take care of that part.]] [[Preferably his captor.]] *Huff.* SCProwl 8:57 pm Galavan asked for Gordon to support his campaign for mayor. verdigrisprowl 8:58 pm Preferably. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 8:58 pm Galvan is going to reap what he sows. Boomtank 8:58 pm ....huh? Oh, the show. Yeah, that's kinda ranging in on stupid Angorumoa 8:59 pm *Small grin.* Guess I should stay hands off if something serious were to happen to either of you? Let you work out your own fates. *Shh. Small butting in.* NoodlesAtNight 8:59 pm *Glance over.* [[Well. He wouldn't say no to divine interference. He'd be a fool if he did.]] verdigrisprowl 9:00 pm Oh, well, if you're offering. Angorumoa 9:00 pm *Laughs.* SCProwl 9:00 pm It's interesting that so many of the universes that have found their way to others has been by accident or space bridge malfunctions. NoodlesAtNight 9:01 pm [[What can he say? We are on the pragmatic side.]] SCProwl 9:01 pm Blaster, how did you find your way into another universe the first time? NoodlesAtNight 9:02 pm [[Hm. Frenzy would like that one.]] Boomtank 9:02 pm ...stupidity. SCProwl 9:02 pm Intentional stupidity or accidental? verdigrisprowl 9:02 pm Mm. They kicked her friend. Serena's gonna kill them. Boomtank 9:02 pm Accidental Angorumoa 9:03 pm Even with the excuse of 'divine intervention,' not many would believe it. *Chuckles.* Casually nudging things to go the right way rather than just uplifting from danger. NoodlesAtNight 9:03 pm [[The napalm one, mind. Not the kicker.]]

[[And he would not complain if she did.]] Boomtank 9:04 pm I stumbled through a rift, and luckily found my way home...and then....had help developing a way to do so safely NoodlesAtNight 9:04 pm [[Many things are drastically changed by a casual nudge. He would not -- where does he find a warehouse like /that/?]] verdigrisprowl 9:04 pm Believe, shmelieve. Anyone who wants to improve the odds is welcome to. SpecsTheSpectralDragon 9:04 pm Ah, I said accidentally. He was intended to be bridged to a dead universe. My universe isn't dead. verdigrisprowl 9:04 pm ((this looks like it could be a location in borderlands.)) SCProwl 9:04 pm *Prowl knows where one used to be* NoodlesAtNight 9:04 pm ((i had so hoped you would think so too)) SpecsTheSpectralDragon 9:04 pm It was an attempted murder, I should have said. NoodlesAtNight 9:05 pm *Minor startle* verdigrisprowl 9:05 pm ((friendly home depot style supermarket with friendly speaker announcements full of weapons and explosives)) *snorts at the explosion.* NoodlesAtNight 9:06 pm *Lips draw back.* [[What are they /eating./ ]] verdigrisprowl 9:06 pm They called it fun dew. Angorumoa 9:06 pm *Grins then shakes his helm.* I am a god of favoritism, but such happens. Can't be there every moment for everyone. *Troublesome. Very much so. Anyway!

Rolls his shoulders.* Hmm. NoodlesAtNight 9:06 pm [[It doesn't look fun. It looks... melted.]] NoodlesAtNight 9:07 pm [[Which is why he so appreciates all the moments you have been. Thank you.]] NoodlesAtNight quietly hugs brigit)) 9:08 pm verdigrisprowl 9:08 pm Some melted things are good. Have you tried warm gallium? SpecsTheSpectralDragon 9:08 pm ((d'aw)) Angorumoa 9:09 pm *Dips his helm.* Things that feel so small, but had such a big impact to where we are now. Such as you being my temporary vassal of transference. SCProwl 9:09 pm I've never been told how Soundwave and Ratchet stumbled onto another universe. It happened while they were on Earth during the war. verdigrisprowl 9:10 pm Being what a what now? NoodlesAtNight 9:10 pm [[Not in a long time. Is it that good? The gallium.]]

*Soundwave looks over to Primus.* [[Whenever it is needed, sir. He will not mind.]] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 9:10 pm But they all got out okay, yes? The one I met... It would have been very bad if he hadn't been able to get help. Even though he only had the one deployer, his fuel supplies started low. I'm glad I could help him build the bridge, but I wish I knew what happened to him. He scrambled everything after he left, and I've never found him. NoodlesAtNight 9:10 pm *And because Soundwave can hear things through the bugs outside:* @SCP: [[Shockwave's fault. Another space bridge incident.]] SCProwl 9:11 pm *eugh eye* verdigrisprowl 9:12 pm I like it. Better in mixes, but I'll take it by itself in shots too. Angorumoa 9:12 pm Preferably I won't need to call on you for something so extreme again. SCProwl 9:12 pm *not even surprised Soundwave can hear the conversation outside* @SW: [[Of course it was.]] NoodlesAtNight 9:13 pm *Considers this.* [[He thinks there is some behind the bar. He will try it tonight after the others have left?]]

[[And preferably not - he'd like to think he does a better job of protecting you than that - but should it be necessary.]] [[Hm. At least she still cares about her own health. That will help her survive their mistreatement until she can get assistance.]] Angorumoa 9:14 pm And I may of used the wrong word, but, it was close. *Looks at Prowl beside Soundwave.* It isn't exactly a story many know of. It is... quite old. A reason Soundwave has, well... *Glances at the slender mech. Prowl does know about the shard?* NoodlesAtNight 9:14 pm [[...Though not as much as if she stopped burning things.]] *Soundwave nods. Yes he does.* verdigrisprowl 9:15 pm *without looking, reaches over to point toward Soundwave's chest questioningly.* NoodlesAtNight 9:16 pm ((i love edwige's hair)) SpecsTheSpectralDragon 9:16 pm ((it's so floofy)) Angorumoa 9:18 pm *Nods.* The short of the story, since there is no one beyond us listening, is that I owe Soundwave much. He acted as the conduit, close enough, for me to temporarily reside in all my essence and power into a globe of Cybertron. I was... nearly dead at that time. As you can see, I am very much alive with my power contained in a proper body.

*Chuckles.* Why I do believe Soundwave thought he was a /thief/ for a long while because a piece was left behind. Angorumoa 9:19 pm [story years old that my lazy ass never completed but is canon fhskdjf] verdigrisprowl 9:19 pm He certainly told ME he was a thief. SCProwl 9:19 pm The multiverse does have its benefits. Boomtank 9:20 pm -snorts- Benefits. Right. Angorumoa 9:20 pm *Looks at Soundwave in amusement.* Better to be thought of as a thief, hrm~? SpecsTheSpectralDragon 9:20 pm I like being able to see stars. They were terrifying at first... But I like them, now. verdigrisprowl 9:20 pm I'm beginning to get the impression he blames himself for a great many sins he never committed. NoodlesAtNight 9:21 pm *Vents. They're ganging up on him now.* SCProwl 9:21 pm When Bevel returned to Cybertron she brought everything she learned about other universes. Millions of different universes. Finding the Soundwave you helped would not be an easy task. NoodlesAtNight 9:21 pm [[He has committed enough of them.]] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 9:22 pm Goddess, no, I know that. And I'm not sure he intended to be found. If that's the case, I never will. verdigrisprowl 9:23 pm *clutches a little tighter to Soundwave* Angorumoa 9:23 pm *Walks over and around. Grinning, he leaned carefully on the back of it. Leans his helm down to give Soundwave a gentle connection. You know he teases out of love.* verdigrisprowl 9:23 pm *it's hard enough when Butch is on the screen when they AREN'T actively forcing him to do things he doesn't want to.* *or talking about his conditioning.* NoodlesAtNight 9:24 pm *Holds tight. It's all right. You're here and nobody will touch you.* @P: [[Ravage tells him things will get better soon.]] NoodlesAtNight 9:25 pm *Soundwave lifts a feeler to gently pat Primus on the helm. He knows. If he didn't know, he would have a very different reaction.* [[Don't stand there, put him out.]] verdigrisprowl 9:25 pm @S «Appreciated.» SpecsTheSpectralDragon 9:26 pm ((dying on fire does not a great cop make)) Angorumoa 9:26 pm *Hums. The air around them warming gently in an appreciative, safe, air.* Boomtank 9:27 pm ((ah fuck SCProwl 9:28 pm *yeah, that'll end well for Gordon* verdigrisprowl 9:29 pm I feel like there are probably less unpleasant ways to prove that the knife is sharp. NoodlesAtNight 9:29 pm [[Slice a paper. A cloth. Anything else.]] SCProwl 9:30 pm *shifts slightly to run one pede through the snow building up round her* Boomtank 9:30 pm -should maybe head inside? Or not? Hmn...- verdigrisprowl 9:32 pm ... Is... *squints at the back* Is he just. Strangling back there. SCProwl 9:32 pm *not the worst idea for a removed limb* NoodlesAtNight 9:32 pm [[He is.]] [[Or trying not to.]] NoodlesAtNight 9:33 pm [[That's an innovative way to go about it. Ratbat never mentioned it.]] verdigrisprowl 9:34 pm I also feel like there are easier ways to get councilmen's support that don't leave them able to say later on when they're feeling slightly safer that they were put on a stool with a noose. Gym's completely out of line. He SHOULD be reported and his strike team is right to call him out and report him. NoodlesAtNight 9:35 pm [[Oh, there are. A potential slip, he hopes.]]

[[And he hopes they do report him.]] NoodlesAtNight 9:36 pm *Bristle. He's pretty sure he knows what this is supposed to be. Does not approve.* [[Do not bother waiting. Burn the lot.]] verdigrisprowl 9:37 pm Don't burn the lot. There are imprisoned slaves inside the lot. NoodlesAtNight 9:37 pm [[Burn the lot after freeing them.]] verdigrisprowl 9:38 pm Maybe they shouldn't be showing their faces. NoodlesAtNight 9:38 pm [[Stop showing off and aim it lower-- oh, for Primus' sake. Wasted opportunity.]] NoodlesAtNight 9:39 pm ((capn barnes is so mad he broke netflix)) Boomtank 9:39 pm ((yup SCProwl 9:39 pm *well at least she can agree with Barnes about some things* verdigrisprowl 9:39 pm All right, the captain gets a point. Gym definitely deserves that note in his file. NoodlesAtNight 9:39 pm [[IT IS NOT WAR.]] verdigrisprowl 9:39 pm And immediately loses it for calling this a war. verdigrisprowl 9:40 pm There ARE gray areas. That doesn't make it acceptable to wander into the shadows just because you're mad and feel like taking it out on someone's chassis. NoodlesAtNight 9:41 pm *Hmm. A good move. Soundwave huffs at Bruce's tactic. He used to like that one himself.* Angorumoa 9:41 pm [*dying* mind if I drop an image here I think all of you could appreciate? or would it mess up the log, puff?] Boomtank 9:41 pm ..... -okay, inside he goes- verdigrisprowl 9:42 pm ((wouldn't mess up my log, just put the link in parentheses so that it actually saves.)) NoodlesAtNight 9:42 pm ((i'm interested in seeing)) [[Welcome back, Blaster. Enjoy the horrible, cold, wet, sticking snow?]] verdigrisprowl 9:42 pm ((parentheses or whatever else)) Angorumoa 9:42 pm [lesse if it works] [ https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/413443912884158464/526939670857252874/fa8.png?width=417&height=468 ] NoodlesAtNight snorts)) 9:42 pm Boomtank 9:43 pm ((hehe verdigrisprowl 9:43 pm ((yeup)) Boomtank 9:43 pm -shakes out blanket- Kinda? It was new, so there's that SCProwl 9:43 pm *admirable defense tactics from the newbuild* NoodlesAtNight 9:43 pm [[You've never encountered it before?]] SpecsTheSpectralDragon 9:43 pm *the dragon is going to roll in this snow for as long as it lasts* NoodlesAtNight 9:44 pm *He can see Harvey doesn't like the Strike Force either. Sensible human.* [[/Run./]] SCProwl 9:44 pm *will remain out here until the being claiming to be Primus leaves or the show is over, whichever happens first* verdigrisprowl 9:44 pm *at least they obey the rules.* NoodlesAtNight 9:44 pm [[Oh, what a move - impressive, that.]] Boomtank 9:45 pm Not really...I've never been to Earth long enough. NoodlesAtNight 9:45 pm [[Perhaps you should go sneak about a while. He is told this is a good time of year for horrific mounds of snow in different parts of the planet.]] SCProwl 9:45 pm *almost sorry to hear Blaster go back inside, but it's fine* NoodlesAtNight 9:45 pm [[It will also be a good time in another six months, but we are not six months from now.]] Angorumoa 9:46 pm *The snow will last until the movie night ends. Then it'll be turned into something else. Maybe mercury or another liquid for energy. Except if Prowl wants to take some. It'll keep snowing in a jar. /not-magic/* Boomtank 9:46 pm I'd...rather not. Boomtank 9:47 pm Snow is...new, yes, but I'd rather not deal with it again SpecsTheSpectralDragon 9:47 pm ((okay, I've got to sneak off. dragon is having snow party time. night all!)) Angorumoa 9:48 pm [night, have a good christmas!] NoodlesAtNight 9:48 pm ((fun fact: the character bridgit is, is traditionally a guy in the comics. recently they took her from the show and put her in as them. *wiggles* )) SCProwl 9:48 pm *she might take a small sample, it's rare the precipitation on Cybertron has so little acidity* Boomtank 9:48 pm ((g'night! NoodlesAtNight 9:48 pm ((night dragon!!)) [[Pity he didn't blow his hand off.]] SCProwl 9:48 pm ((Bridgit <3 verdigrisprowl 9:49 pm (("put her in as them"? what, like, changed the original dude's pronouns to they/them, or took out the dude and put in the girl instead, or?)) NoodlesAtNight 9:50 pm ((like she made her own appearance as that particular villain - there have been multiple with the name and she's the latest)) [[Not undeserved.]] verdigrisprowl 9:50 pm ((ah)) Boomtank 9:51 pm ............... -hiding in the blanket- NoodlesAtNight 9:51 pm *Carefully pulls it up higher over Blaster's head.* Angorumoa 9:51 pm [GOOD GOING] Boomtank 9:52 pm -muffled 'Thank you' from under it- Angorumoa 9:52 pm [*coughcough* speaking of bbq, boom, you did eat today right? NoodlesAtNight 9:52 pm ((oh my god)) verdigrisprowl 9:52 pm ((hey cro did YOU eat today)) NoodlesAtNight 9:52 pm ((i did! twice)) verdigrisprowl 9:53 pm ((good)) Boomtank 9:53 pm ((leftovers ((but yes I had at least one meal Angorumoa 9:53 pm [we're 50/50 or 30/70 adults capable verdigrisprowl 9:53 pm *squeezes a little tighter. are they going to help him? undo the brainwashing?* Boomtank 9:53 pm ((yup! NoodlesAtNight 9:54 pm *Pets the hand and nods.* verdigrisprowl 9:54 pm *is fine with him getting attacked strangled as long as it's going to set him free.* NoodlesAtNight 9:55 pm [[Fool. If he doesn't keep it, you will be out a valuable source of information. Learn to bend when it is important.]] NoodlesAtNight 9:56 pm [[Besides - imagine all she knows about the other jobs they pulled. She could give closure to many cases and identify many who hired them.]] Angorumoa 9:56 pm [Aaaaaaaaaaah! I don't visit my email or facebook vert often, but my friend, my "twin" as we joked in school, just got engaged.] NoodlesAtNight 9:56 pm ((congrats to them!!)) verdigrisprowl 9:58 pm ... That's a hell of a thing to say to an orphan. NoodlesAtNight 9:58 pm [[Yes. Rather insensitive.]] verdigrisprowl 9:58 pm ((look at bruce.)) ((he's six.)) NoodlesAtNight 9:59 pm [[...He wouldn't.]] verdigrisprowl 9:59 pm ... He might. Boomtank 10:00 pm -still hiding, and not thinking of changing it any time soon- SCProwl 10:00 pm *this is going to end badly and Prowl isn't looking forward to it* NoodlesAtNight 10:00 pm [[Oh, good, she went back.]] NoodlesAtNight 10:01 pm [[She does their jobs for them and they arrest her. Hmph.]] verdigrisprowl 10:02 pm She HAS committed several murders at this point. NoodlesAtNight 10:03 pm [[The world is better off for her having done so.]] *Pause.* [[...But he realizes that is illegal. Still. She did not deserve that.]] Boomtank 10:03 pm -very glad he's hiding, he heard that- verdigrisprowl 10:05 pm Mm? The world has several more murders in it. It's good that they were stopped. But. Boomtank 10:06 pm That's not going to help.... NoodlesAtNight 10:07 pm [[There, you see. You've lost her.]] verdigrisprowl 10:07 pm To be fair, she... pretty unambiguously set herself on fire. NoodlesAtNight 10:07 pm [[There were other ways to go to her.]] NoodlesAtNight 10:08 pm [[And she roasted the vehicle. The rest was an a-- oh no.]] NoodlesAtNight 10:09 pm *...Personally, he would be thankful to someone who saved him from a partner like that. But he can see how someone else would be disturbed by it.* verdigrisprowl 10:10 pm He's got a hand around her neck. I'd say he's exactly the man she thinks he is. NoodlesAtNight 10:11 pm *Shakes his head. Poor Kristen.* verdigrisprowl 10:11 pm Do CPR, you idiot. NoodlesAtNight 10:11 pm [[Will that help her? He thought it was for humans who had drowned.]] verdigrisprowl 10:11 pm You had her neck for, what, about ten seconds? It takes about, oh, thirty to actually kill one. It's not too late for CPR. It gets air moving again when the air's stopped. Works for drowning, strangulation, suffocation... NoodlesAtNight 10:12 pm [[Then he has killed her twice. She deserved better.]] NoodlesAtNight 10:13 pm [[...Hm.]] Boomtank 10:14 pm -is it over?- NoodlesAtNight 10:14 pm *It is indeed over. Soundwave gently taps Blaster on the arm through the blanket.* Boomtank 10:15 pm -peers out at Soundwave-....I really don't like fire... NoodlesAtNight 10:15 pm [[Oh? He did not know that. Would you prefer to be informed of large fires in the future?]] Boomtank 10:15 pm If that's not too much trouble... NoodlesAtNight 10:15 pm [[It is not.]] SCProwl 10:16 pm *ah it's over. pings Soundwave, Blaster, and her alternate goodnight and ends the video feed* Boomtank 10:16 pm Then, yes please. verdigrisprowl 10:16 pm *returns ping* Angorumoa 10:16 pm [*made self sad*] [*but happy for them* SCProwl 10:16 pm ((ngl but she sounds like she wants to fuck the grinch verdigrisprowl 10:17 pm ((she does)) Boomtank 10:17 pm -returns the ping- NoodlesAtNight 10:17 pm *Bobs head at SCProwl. Goodnight. Do not fall into any drifts on the way out.* Boomtank 10:17 pm ((juuuuust a lil verdigrisprowl 10:17 pm ((you're a mean one mr grinch as sung by that one lady in the jim carrey version)) verdigrisprowl 10:18 pm *ah, his eyes are his own again* SCProwl 10:18 pm ((accurate, puff NoodlesAtNight 10:18 pm ((why are you sad??? @primus-mun)) Angorumoa 10:18 pm [Cause I decided to stay on Facebook to remove some people, mostly ponies, and saw my old boyfriend.] Boomtank 10:19 pm ((ouch NoodlesAtNight 10:19 pm ((oof)) SCProwl 10:19 pm *definitely won't, though her tires do skid a little before she gets them fully beneath her and takes off back to Praxus* Angorumoa 10:19 pm [Yeah, I'm the one who broke it off too btw. So long ago... And seems he is now happily married. With by seeming to check on other things, appeas to have a babbeh Boomtank 10:19 pm ((holy shit Angorumoa 10:20 pm [I knew him, like, so flipping long ago. He looks exactly the same.] NoodlesAtNight 10:20 pm *Soundwave closes his optics and lets himself float off to the music. The dancing is nice, but he wants to picture something other than fleshlings dancing to that.* verdigrisprowl 10:21 pm *checks to ensure that no one is looking specifically in his direction at this exact moment in time.* Boomtank 10:21 pm -still, he got a blanket out of this, so he's good- verdigrisprowl 10:21 pm *coast clear for .5 seconds? smooch.* Angorumoa 10:21 pm [I'm happy for him to be a happy. He's a great guy. I just couldn't move onto things he wanted, so... whee I'm gunna faceplant on discord now] NoodlesAtNight 10:22 pm *Startle! ... Quick smooch back. Maybe a little biolight pulse.*

((i'm so sorry. i hope this sadness passes for you and that your year to come brings you things you want)) Angorumoa 10:22 pm *You know he's right there?* verdigrisprowl 10:23 pm *yeah but he wasn't looking AT them at that precise moment in time.* Angorumoa 10:23 pm [Sad pang, but as I said, I'm happy that he's happy with a wifu.] Boomtank 10:23 pm -going to dump the blanket over Primus' helm- NoodlesAtNight 10:23 pm *Please. Prowl accused you of being his dom once. That overrides any possible awkwardness over a small smooch.* verdigrisprowl 10:23 pm *it was a /metaphor/* *and a /good/ metaphor* Angorumoa 10:23 pm *Internal cackle. Has a blanket now. How dare.* Boomtank 10:25 pm -and then just...kinda drape on him.- Home now? NoodlesAtNight 10:25 pm @P: [[Been sitting on that?]] verdigrisprowl 10:25 pm @S «Since you bit my shoulder.» Angorumoa 10:25 pm Yeah, you have to get back home safely, Blaster. NoodlesAtNight 10:25 pm *Turn to stare.* [[Your patience is legendary.]]

*Glance to the others.* [[He can arrange a bridge, if safety is a concern.]] Boomtank 10:26 pm Hey. I'm not that bad.... verdigrisprowl 10:26 pm @S «It wasn't that long.» Angorumoa 10:26 pm *Chuckle.* Boomtank 10:27 pm It malfunctioned /once/ NoodlesAtNight 10:27 pm @P: [[You say that, and yet he remembers you staring at the ceiling like it had done something terrible to you and waiting to run upstairs with him the night he needed to speak to Primus. Tonight, he had no idea.]] Boomtank 10:28 pm ...okay, so that time nearly got me killed, but it was only once. verdigrisprowl 10:28 pm *AHEM* @S «... That delay was unanticipated.» Angorumoa 10:28 pm These are things you don't want your guard to know, Blaster. Boomtank 10:28 pm ................... Boomtank 10:29 pm please don't tell him Angorumoa 10:29 pm [nazis in the nutcracker] NoodlesAtNight 10:29 pm *Softy huffing.* ((wha?)) Angorumoa 10:29 pm [XD the nostalgiacritic reviewed a nutcracker, the most hated version with nazis in it Boomtank 10:30 pm ((ooooh Angorumoa 10:30 pm Go home in the safe bridge, Blaster. I'll avoid telling Har what you said. NoodlesAtNight 10:30 pm ((well i won't have that shown here and i don't care to think about such things tonight)) verdigrisprowl 10:30 pm ((agreed)) Angorumoa 10:30 pm [that whole movie was a big NOPEWTF] Boomtank 10:31 pm Fine, fine, I'm going. Angorumoa 10:31 pm [on good news, it is STILL SNOWING] Boomtank 10:31 pm ((FUCK NoodlesAtNight 10:31 pm ((god, good luck)) Boomtank 10:31 pm ((gonna need it Angorumoa 10:31 pm [put a noodle in a parka and THROW to enjoy the snow for a few seconds] NoodlesAtNight 10:31 pm ((last one and then public stream closes off)) NoodlesAtNight 10:32 pm @P: [[And what would you do if he found an excuse to delay tonight? Out of curiosity.]] verdigrisprowl 10:32 pm @S «I got my kiss in.» Boomtank 10:32 pm ((g'night and thanks for the stream! NoodlesAtNight 10:32 pm ((night! and thank you for comin)) NoodlesAtNight 10:33 pm @P: [[And that is all you want? Well. If you insist, but he confesses he /is/ disappointed.]] verdigrisprowl 10:34 pm @S «It's all I was waiting on. Anything else is a pleasant bonus.» NoodlesAtNight 10:35 pm @P: [[Ah. Fortunately for you, he is feeling generous.]] *Gonna take one of those hands around his arm, lift it up, and nibble the knuckles. What can he say? He's been in a biting mood since he thought about it earlier.* [[Do you know, it is rather convenient staying with this half mask. He thinks he'll keep it that way.]] verdigrisprowl 10:36 pm @S «Do I still get your optics to myself?» NoodlesAtNight 10:37 pm @P: [[Without question.]]

*Soundwave stretches.* [[But for the moment he should clean up.]] verdigrisprowl 10:37 pm Can I help? NoodlesAtNight 10:38 pm *.......Considers this. Prowl asks so often. And he's pretty sure he can trust Prowl's definition of clean more than the twins'.*

*Oh, why not.*

[[Yes, thank you. He would like that.]] verdigrisprowl 10:39 pm *a milestone! he gets to help clean.* Angorumoa 10:39 pm *Aren't they cute. Don't mind him, he was still there grinning like a bit of a youthful mech, as he pulls back. Dislodges the Ravage who may or may not of been there still.

There is thirty feet of constant snow he must see to and remove outside. Shift it into... something. Maybe a few barrels of mercury or another metal. Soundwave can figure out what it can be used for once Primus has cleaned up his own mess.* NoodlesAtNight 10:40 pm *Ravage was blissfully napping, as it happens. Emphasis on was, as he is now jolting awake with a confused /brrrm?/ and vacating Primus' shoulder. Some mattresses, honestly.* NoodlesAtNight 10:41 pm *Primus wouldn't happen to consider making it gallium, would he? Just a thought.* verdigrisprowl 10:41 pm *Too Much Gallium* NoodlesAtNight 10:42 pm *Rubbish. You're going to live at least another few million years. That's plenty spoiling time.* Angorumoa 10:42 pm *Sorry, Ravage. Out of apology, he'll turn a bit of the snow into a toy flobster he can destroy to his spark's content. That or torment the other minis with it. Good?

Gallium? Can do.* NoodlesAtNight 10:43 pm *Mmm, destruction. He'll take it.* Angorumoa 10:44 pm *A pounce-sized flobster toy that'll take time to completely wreck gets tossed in a minute after Primus went outside. It'll last a day or a week depending on Ravage's time spent.

The rest will end up in barrels outside the door. The twins can bring them on in later.* NoodlesAtNight 10:46 pm *Soundwave wobbles some gratitude in Primus' direction. One way or another, they'll make good use of that.*

*For now, he'll keep picking up furniture and moving it back where it goes.*

[[Hm. Perhaps he should enlist your help after business hours as well.]] *Humor ping.* verdigrisprowl 10:47 pm Do I get to stay over those nights if I do? *humor ping* NoodlesAtNight 10:47 pm *Stops mid-lift to look over at Prowl.* [[...Would you want to stay over those nights?]] Angorumoa 10:47 pm [nini you two, have a good christmas and/or general holiday-ness <3] verdigrisprowl 10:48 pm ((gnight)) NoodlesAtNight 10:48 pm ((goodnight! have a good day tomorrow and a good new year <3 <3 )) verdigrisprowl 10:50 pm *the snacks that he's seen being put up before, he's putting back where they belong; the rest he doesn't he's organizing neatly on the counter. But he pauses to consider Soundwave's question.* ... I don't dislike the schedule we already have. I—also don't dislike the idea of spending more time over, but—I am—concerned, about the possibility of spending too much time together. And either getting on each other's nerves or sacrificing other relationships. NoodlesAtNight 10:57 pm *Soundwave sets the item where it goes at last and eyes the puddles from the snow tracked in earlier. He'll fetch a mop. It's tiny - meant for one of the deployers to use - but he can hold it in the tendrils and he doesn't feel like going upstairs for the bigger one.*

[[He doesn't dislike the schedule or the idea either, if that is any comfort. And you do not get on his nerves.]] *Mop, mop, mop. Can't have rust inside the club.* [[But he does not wish to get on yours, or to cause you to sacrifice your other relationships either. That is why he asked whether or not you were serious about it.]] *Wrings mop into an empty cube. It's going to get washed and recycled anyway, so.* [[He will not take offense if you say no. Concerns must be controlled and balanced; he understands that.]] verdigrisprowl 11:00 pm And you don't get on mine. Nor do I predict with certainty that you would—but I don't know if that would change if we doubled the amount of social time we spent together. Anyway, it's not a "no"— a list of concerns IS my answer. NoodlesAtNight 11:03 pm ((rabbit what are you DOING tonight)) verdigrisprowl 11:03 pm ((gee prowl, why does rabbit let you have TWO soundwaves?)) NoodlesAtNight 11:03 pm ((LMAO)) NoodlesAtNight 11:08 pm [[He can assure you he would always keep at least two - perhaps three - nights to himself. He does require down time, and the deployers need time and attention of their own. One of the most understanding and cooperative mechs you may be when it comes to them, but he does not think you would care for getting caught up in their habit of piling on him to sleep.]] *More soft laughter.* NoodlesAtNight 11:09 pm [[Although Zori would probably manage to nap in your thigh compartment rather comfortably. He did say it was cozy.]] verdigrisprowl 11:09 pm ... Well, they ARE about a tenth the size of the Constructicons... *humor ping* verdigrisprowl 11:10 pm I'm glad my thigh compartment meets his approval, at any rate. NoodlesAtNight 11:10 pm *Pings back.* [[Very well. He'll tell Buzzsaw to come roost on your shoulder at once.]] verdigrisprowl 11:11 pm *huff* NoodlesAtNight 11:13 pm [[Not that you would be expected to spend all of the other nights here, of course. You have things to do with your time as well. He is simply saying that you aren't going to need to worry about being asked to stay every night, if that is any comfort of any kind.]] verdigrisprowl 11:14 pm I didn't expect you would, but I appreciate hearing it. NoodlesAtNight 11:14 pm *Nods.* NoodlesAtNight 11:18 pm *...He doesn't know what else to say so he'll just put the mop and cube away and park himself at the bar for a standing shot of something warm (but not boozy, naturally)*

[[Well. He has run that into the ground. Had you anything else on your mind?]] verdigrisprowl 11:19 pm No, you didn't. *he gets another smooch.* ... Would YOU like me to stay over more nights? verdigrisprowl 11:21 pm *... was the smooch too much. he's overthinking it now. don't mind him silently fretting over here.* NoodlesAtNight 11:25 pm *Soundwave's engines tell Prowl exactly how pleased he is with that there smooch. It's not too much at all.*

[[...He wouldn't mind one more, at least. These movie nights make a fine tradition, and one he is not inclined to change, but he--]] *How to phrase without being selfish? Is that a thing? Isn't everything to do with this sort of thing selfish by nature?* [[He also likes the idea of your being here for the night without first having to sit in and wait on a noisy crowd. It is more... hm. He does not want to say "personal." More focused?]] verdigrisprowl 11:26 pm Private? NoodlesAtNight 11:26 pm [[Ah. Thank you. Yes.]] verdigrisprowl 11:27 pm ... Hm. ... We could try it out and see if we like it? NoodlesAtNight 11:29 pm [[If that is all right with you, he would like that, yes.]] verdigrisprowl 11:31 pm All right. Then, let's try it. NoodlesAtNight 11:32 pm *Tiny bow.* [[Thank you. He appreciates your willingness to test it.]] verdigrisprowl 11:33 pm What nights work for you? NoodlesAtNight 11:35 pm [[The only one he has trouble clearing or scheduling around is Saturday.]] *Shakes the glass in Prowl's direction and sends a humor ping.* [[Do not tell his enemies.]]

[[Besides, that would just be another day for you to wait on his being done with a crowd, and it is even noisier than than these nights.]] verdigrisprowl 11:36 pm I take it you don't actually want me to help clean, then. *humor ping* How about the middle of the week? There tends to be less crime and I have less late nights. NoodlesAtNight 11:37 pm [[You can if you like, but we clean Sunday mornings.]] *Toothy smile.* [[Very bright for night time.]]

[[Ah, that will do. ... Why is there less crime?]] [[Have the criminals begun getting organized? He hasn't seen any signs of it--]] verdigrisprowl 11:38 pm People have more free time to get into trouble on weekends. verdigrisprowl 11:39 pm You don't have drunken dance club brawls on the nights dance clubs aren't open. NoodlesAtNight 11:39 pm *Plants Rumble and Frenzy's photos on his visor.* [[You'd think that, wouldn't you.]] verdigrisprowl 11:40 pm Okay, maybe YOU do. General "you." The average public "you." NoodlesAtNight 11:42 pm [[An acceptable point. He understands. The middle of the week is fine, thank you.]] NoodlesAtNight 11:43 pm [[And he will try to keep the local off-season drunken dance club brawls to a minimum.]] verdigrisprowl 11:44 pm It wouldn't be any wilder than my place, I'm sure. NoodlesAtNight 11:45 pm [[Primus forbid. To the Pit with the furniture; he wouldn't have any /walls/ left.]] NoodlesAtNight 11:46 pm [[But all of that will be another night. For now, there is a chain upstairs with your designation on it.]] *Drops the tiny glass in the sink with the cube.* [[Literally, in fact. He borrowed Buzzsaw's engraving pen. It amused him.]] verdigrisprowl 11:46 pm *REV* NoodlesAtNight 11:47 pm *Silent but obvious laughing.* [[Had he known that would be your reaction, he'd have tried it sooner. Well, then - would you like to be led to it, or will you be directing yourself?]] verdigrisprowl 11:49 pm ... Had I known that would be my reaction, I'd have suggested it sooner. *you learn something new every day.* I, uh... think I like the sound of being led. NoodlesAtNight 11:54 pm [[Good. He liked the sound of leading you.]]

*Soundwave is just gonna let a feeler slither out to wrap around Prowl's upper arms and chest. This mech is his now, thank you.*

[[Tight enough?]] verdigrisprowl 11:55 pm *REVVVV.* ... Yes. NoodlesAtNight 11:58 pm *Oh, this is going to be a /treat./*

[[Excellent. Step quickly and keep up. He won't be giving any excess slack.]] *Just enough space that neither of them smack into or kick the other while going upstairs. And now, time to head off with his dear amica trailing behind him.* verdigrisprowl 11:59 pm Yes, SIR. *and he shall obediently—and quickly—follow behind.*

[burnwater13]

Grogu standing outside the tavern on Sorgan watching Din Djarin and Cara Dune fight each other. He is holding a cup of bone broth. Image from The Mandalorian, Season 1, Episode 4, Sanctuary. Calendar from DataWorks.

Grogu had witnessed a lot of fights in his life. Some were serious fights. Others were more light hearted, or at least less dire. The point had been to build skills, not actually hurt anyone. But this fight… the one between the Mandalorian and Cara Dune, well, it was just silly. Oh, it was still painful and serious, but in the big picture it was silly. 

Why? Because there she was, a former shock-trooper, her stripes visible for anyone to see, just sitting in a tavern in her armor, trying to look nonchalant. If she was worried about bounty hunters then why not at least try to hide? It didn’t make sense. 

And then, why assume that any Mandalorian she saw was a bounty hunter? Sure, Din Djarin looked menacing and kind of scary in his armor, but Grogu was pretty sure that was mostly due to how shiny the stuff was now. The Jawas on Arvala-7 hadn’t been afraid of him. Not in the least. But that old armor didn’t make them think twice. That fact that he was a Mandalorian hadn’t bothered them either. Nope. So why was Cara Dune more sensitive to threats than your average Jawa?

If she had known how dangerous Mandalorians were and the reputation of Mandalorian Bounty Hunters, wouldn’t it have been wiser to just wait and see what was up? Or offer to buy him a drink, the way CobbVanth had been they made their trip to Mos Pelgo? The Marshal had far less training in threat assessment than an Alliance to Restore the Republic Shock-Trooper. Her reaction to the Mandalorian was nothing short of silly from Grogu’s perspective.

But it wasn’t like Din Djarin was doing himself any favors either. Why bother with the shock trooper to being with? Who cared why she was there or what she was doing? Wasn’t it obvious that she was stuck there? They hadn’t found a bunch of ships when they checked on Sorgan with the Razor Crest’s sensor array. They hadn’t seen a bunch of ships either. That’s why they were there. It was ‘a real backwater skug hole’ according to his dad. 

So there they were, two people who had no reason to fight, fighting each other because that’s what people who like to fight do. That’s right. Grogu had realized that his protector liked fighting as soon as he chased after the Jawas and tried to commandeer their sand crawler. Anyone else would have just followed them and waited for them to stop and then tried to trade with them. Din Djarin probably could have gotten all his parts back if he’d just traded one of his beskar knee covers for the stuff. But that was not how the Mandalorian did things. It was also not how Cara Dune did things. 

Grogu wasn’t a fighter. He was a pragmatist. A survivor. He didn’t need to pick fights with anyone. What was the point? First he was small. That was his lived reality. It helped him when he needed to hide, run away, or get someplace other people couldn’t fit into. But when it came to the use of brute strength no one was going to mistake him for a brute. 

Given those limitations, he turned his skills to other activities, like observation and assessment. That’s why he followed the Mandalorian and the shock trooper outside. That’s also why he brought his cup of bone broth with him. The fact that he needed to collect data on the shock trooper didn’t stop him from being hungry. In fact, the harder he worked at tasks like that, the more he needed to eat. Being quiet and of the direct line of trouble took energy and he considered it important to maintain those energy levels at all times. He was too small to have excess energy stored for future use. 

Grogu was surprised that the two fighters were so closely matched. The Mandalorian was covered with armor and had all sorts of weapons at his disposal. The shock-trooper had a side arm and not much else. One solid head butt with that beskar helmet and Grogu would have expected her to be knocked unconscious and that would have been that. But instead they threw punches, kicked each other, flipped each other around and finally drew their blaster pistols. It was wasteful of time and energy, but then, they both obviously liked fighting and you didn’t just end a fight like that without running the other person through their paces. Or so Grogu had been told later when he brought the matter up with his dad. 

Grogu had grudgingly accepted that was a possible explanation for the way the fight played out, but he had his doubts. After all, they had just sat around after the fight and drank bone broth and talked about hiding from ex-Imps, other bounty hunters, and the rest of civil society in general.  So they became friends? Or at least friendly. That’s what happened when you enjoyed a challenge and didn’t really think the other person was there to arrest you or bring you in cold. 

In any case, they had both given Grogu an excellent opportunity to assess and evaluate and formulate his conclusion that humans were weird and he’d never really get used to how weird they were. Why not just say ‘Hello there’ and get to know a person? It was far more civilized. 

[burnwater13]

Grogu standing on the ground within the krill farming collective on Sorgan while the children around him throw him krill to chase and eat. Image from The Mandalorian, Season 1, Episode 4, Sanctuary. Calendar from DataWorks.

Grogu was surprised when he looked at the calendar and realized that it had been almost a year since he and his dad had been on Sorgan. He wondered if he could talk the bounty hunter into going back for a visit. You know. For old time’s sake? Maybe? 

If that didn’t work he’d ask if they could make a food run. He’d been really craving those blue krill. Every time he turned around someone was drinking spotchka and he actually knew where it was made and who made it. They should go back and see how Sorgan was thriving after helping them get rid of those Klatooinian Raiders. Right?

He had enjoyed the small amount of time they had spent there. The kids were a lot of fun. The adults didn’t care how many frogs or krill he ate. There were lots of ponds to hang out near, because that’s where the frogs and the krill were. He even remembered the lady at the tavern who was so kind to them. It was nice to have new memories that were so filled with fondness and humor. Even watching his Dad and Marshal Dune ‘meet’ each other for the first time was a funny memory that Grogu enjoyed revisiting.

He decided to spend the day sketching scenes that he recalled from the time they were there. Sketching Winta with her mom was easy. The tavern keeper scolding the mean Loth cat had been sweet revenge (the Loth cat was slinking away with its tail between its legs). The overview of the krill farming collective was complicated and really challenged him, but he was satisfied that he got the round houses and the layout of the trapezoidal ponds correct, which was important to him. He found the sketch of him eating the frog the most challenging. 

He tried just doing it without looking in a mirror or in his case, the shiny surface of the thigh protector his had removed from his second layer to clean and polish. Grogu had thought his dad was imagining the dirt on the beskar until he got too frustrated with drawing himself without looking at himself. Then he took the thigh protector from his dad’s work bench and propped it up against a the window in the front room because he was sitting at the table they did everything at to sketch. 

That was a disappointment for a whole variety of reasons. First and foremost was the utter lack of good light for sketching, because now he was blocking it with the armor. Then, when he propped the thigh protector against the back of his dad’s chair and the edge of the table, he had better light, except that now he was creating a shadow over his sketch pad. Uff. Then he moved the things until he had the right light and no shadows on his paper and the thigh protector was secure.

(Uff, you could only drop it so many times before a Mandalorian got suspicious and walked out of the fresher in just a towel and a helmet to find out what was making that sort of racket! Grogu had fixed things quickly and told his dad it must have been a steelpecker dropping stuff at the landfill. Grogu was glad that his dad bought that explanation and went back to finish his shower. Suds had started dripping down from under the Mandalorian’s helmet and the only person who was going to get in trouble for that was Grogu.)

Once he had everything the way he wanted it, Grogu was faced with another stumbling block. He didn’t really look like that, did he? Huge ears. Giant bulging eyes. A practically non-existent chin. And he was so… so… round! When he looked down at himself he saw a lean, not a bit of fat on him, Jedi, with the serious look that all Mandalorians wore under their helmets. But not this guy! This guy had a grin that stretched forever. How the heck could he look like that! People said that when you did a self portrait you had to be prepared for both the good and the bad. They didn’t say, ‘Hey, kid! It’s all bad. Don’t do it! It will break your heart!’. 

Grogu was about to put everything away, he was so annoyed at the image he saw, when he dad came over to see what he was up to.

“That’s where that thigh protector got to. Buddy, you can’t use this as a mirror. It’s curved and dirty. It’s going to distort everything. I have a small mirror you can use. I’ll get it for you and you won’t need to drop my armor on the floor again.”

Dank Farrik! Mandalorians knew everything! Or was that just a dad thing? Grogu didn’t know, but he appreciated his dad bringing him the mirror and he promised to help him with cleaning the armor since dropping it on the floor hadn’t made it any cleaner. 

“That’s okay, pal. Use this instead and we’ll call it even.” His dad was chuckling when he handed Grogu the mirror. Grogu looked at his hands as he adjusted it and realized that his dad just didn’t want all the charcoal dust to get on any more of his armor. Very funny. 

Grogu took a deep breath and looked into the mirror. He let his eyes really see the image presented. The skin tone. The shape of his nose. The tiny white hairs that populated his head and his ears (to some extent) and the round, slightly greenish-pink, pinkish-green cheeks that the librarian at the the Jedi Temple had pinched so often. He let his breath out slowly and began to sketch. 

He went slow, took breaks, and continued to use deep breaths and long, long soft sighs to help keep him calm and centered. It was important to find the joy in the thing you were doing when you were doing it according to Master Beq. Grogu knew his teacher was correct when he finally finished the sketch. It was a thing of beauty. The proportions and scale and contours were perfect. The composition was exactly as it should be. The details! Oh, the details had been so hard to get just right, but he’d used the Force to help him search for those memories and study them carefully so he would do that memory justice. 

When he was done he put done his tools and sat back and just admired what he’d accomplished. It was a masterpiece and he wasn’t too humble to admit that it was his best work to date. It made him very happy. 

“That’s what you were sketching? The time on Sorgan when you had the frog in your mouth and the kids were all screaming about it?”

“Yup.” Grogu was very proud of that moment as any Jedi would have been. A Mandalorian would never understand how to eat frogs properly.