TFs: DARE TO BE STUPID

Eyyy, so the week has been 1) busy, 2) distracting, and 3) filled with miserable overwork-induced illness, but! I've finally got myself back in gear. And the wip to come unstuck was the Rodimus/Starscream one, and I am STOKED. And it's apparently going to be its own standalone story! Because I'm now at 2.5k and only just beginning to slide into the sexy, sexy content. I've turned the hardest corner, I am now only constrained by my need to "sleep" or whatever this bullshit is. But tomorrow is my half day, and even if I'm good and work out and run errands, I'm going to have this done sometime tomorrow evening.

(womp womp, just remembered I haven't figured out the sexy logistics of the rest of the fic at all, so half a day of delay is probably for the best XD )

Spoiler: indirect discussion of past sexual abuse

[starscream being very verbally/physically sarcastic about ooooh my CHAMPION, what would I ever do without you???]

“Okay. Thanks. Got it. Okay. You’ve made your point.”

When you shove weakly at him, he stays where he is. He takes his arms from around your neck, at least. But then he stays right there sitting across your lap. He folds his arms across his chest, and even crosses one of his legs across the other. Personal space is something that happens to other mechs, you guess. One of your arms is left awkwardly hovering over his stomach. Though all things considered, you don’t exactly feel like you deserve to tell him to frag off right now. And when you sneak a sideways look at his face, he looks just as smug as you expected, but even you can tell just how bitter that look in his optics is.

You add, “Sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

If he’s not moving, you’re not just going to just hold your arm in the air until he decides he’s done with you. Slowly, you let your arm settle across his waist. “Megatron—?”

“Yes,” he says flatly. “And just because he seems to have been behaving on your ship, don’t think I’m anywhere close to trusting him to act decently.”

What are you supposed to say to that? To any of this? You settle on, “I never would have guessed.”

He glances up at you. “As observant and sensitive as you are? Perish the thought.”

You stiffen, half offended and half trying to figure out if this would be the worst possible time to burst out laughing, and as Starscream turns away, you think you catch a faint smile on his face.

 

Oh man, guys, I just realized. On the LL 2.0, Rodimus died off right away. And Drift is left nominally in charge. Now, we see a couple people on the LL being suspicious of him for being an ex-decepticon, and one of the big-name, notable decepticon killers. Sure, some people are friendly with him (oh, Pipes ;-;) and some are at least sociably-indifferent. But you also have Ultra Magnus being super suspicious, and this Ultra Magnus never got the learn-to-lighten-up character arc. Ratchet and Drift's thing is Complicated, but you can easily read some tricky, not-entirely-friendly stuff into the way Ratchet feels about him, especially given Drift's history as a killer and Ratchet's as a medic, plus Dead End and how things went from there. And given how HARD everyone turned against Drift when he took the fall for Overlord, like... that felt like more than 'a decent-meaning person did a poorly-considered thing, and bad shit happened.' Rereading that feels to me like people were just fine with having an excuse to be vicious about it.

Gah, sorry, tangent. I was just thinking about how lonely it must have been for Drift 2.0 to go on this epic space journey with his best friend, only for his best friend to immediately die a pretty horrifying death and be left alone on a ship where a significant portion of the crew are either suspicious of him, or who tolerate him more than they're friendly with him. And then the DJD. I'm really, really sad for Drift 2.0 :(

 

Well, we don't know the particulars, but he was found in a closet, like this!

Spoiler: robogore

The placement of his hand on the sword in Hoist's (?) chest is interesting, I wonder if that was a mercy kill, or he was trying to retrieve the weapon to fight back. Also, dang, this is the first time I noticed the double fist impact right in the middle of his chest, just about on the autobrand.

edit: also the way ratchet's eyes aren't quite evenly drilled out is super nice, v. distressing, 10/10, would recommend

 

On a happier note, check out these two dorks getting close and friendly. Those hands on her shoulders are too cute. Extra appropriate, because physically affectionate Nightbeat/Nautica is on my shortlist of things I need to write. Mmmmaybe handsy stuff with a hardline connection too? I will have to consider

 

Actually, you know, from the angle of drift's greatsword.... it's kinda sideways given how you'd think he would carry it on his back. The lines are a little tricky, but did someone stab that straight down through his head? Because that's what I'm seeing.

 

*drags fic into the thread and collapses on the ground*

Starscream/Rodimus!

Nsfw, and mind the warning for past sexual/physical/emotional abuse, though nothing is discussed in any actual detail. This turned out about twice as long as I expected, whoops. But I am LOVING this ship, I want to play with them more. I'm trying to figure out if there's really a direction to take a further installment that would be interesting, or if maybe I should just do little one-shots to drop in the kink bingo aggregate fic :T I'll work it out! Because yeah, I am totally into the way these two bounce off each other.