[* * * * *]
Title: An Accidental Love Story, Pt. 1
Artist: Ao3 - Shibara / LiveJournal - Shibara-FFnet
Warnings: Confusion, invisibility, domination, bodily harm, and Vikings.
Rating: PG-13
Continuity: G1, "A Taste for Security" spin-off
Characters: Cliffjumper, Red Alert, Mirage
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors (or scenery), nor does it make a profit from the play. Artist and author did not actually try to kill each other.
Motivation (Prompt): Artist vs Author deathmatch challenge gone wrong. Because it started with a picture, and artists should know better than to challenge authors who are easily provoked…
[* * * * *]
Pt. 1: An Accidental Love Story
(In which Captain Obvious pays a visit to Cliffjumper.)
'To the Oblivious-Mobile, Captain Obvious!'
[* * * * *]
Earth was an okay place for a dirtball. Cliffjumper didn't mind it. It wasn't home, of course, but it wasn't bad as far as crash pads went. Like the humans said, "Any port in a storm."
Like a human seeking shelter somewhere during a storm, however, Cliffjumper knew better than to piss off the natives. That was actually pretty easy, because the humans were forgiving little creatures with an innate ability to give as good as they got. Gears had been the Grand Champion of complaining about everyone and everything right up until Carly introduced the Autobots to her grandmother. Now, not only did Gears take second place, but the joke around the Ark was that he was trying to shore up his gearstick enough to ask her out on a date. Not because he was necessarily interested in the old lady romantically, but because he wanted to take notes on how she turned him down. Carly had been appalled at first, either at her grandma's manners or Gears' stricken expression, but now she led the herd in teasing him.
So, yeah, Cliffjumper didn't feel like the Autobots were doing a half-bad job getting along with the locals. Getting along with each other was slightly more difficult.
Common wisdom held not to foster hostility between crew members. Being shut into a ship with people a mech didn't get on with was bad enough without making the situation worse by starting fights. Cliffjumper had found those words of wisdom to be somewhat difficult to remember.
It hadn't been so bad when the Ark launched, because it was supposed to be a relatively short mission. Mission plan: find a new energon source and bring the energon back to Cybertron. Cliffjumper was supposed to help guard the work and fill in the work schedule when needed. He wasn't supposed to be stuck in the same base for years with this crew. Saints would lose patience, much less Cliffjumper!
He got that he was no peach himself. He, uh, jumped to conclusions. He…sometimes saw traitors where there were none, based off of his quick decisions. That made it hard to live with him. He got that, really, he did, even before Jazz had pulled him aside for a one-on-one debriefing on just how much all the supposed 'traitors' in the ranks were contributing.
He'd been trying to 'think first, act later' more. Primus knew, he'd been trying. He didn't give the Aerialbots the stink-optic anymore, which didn't stop him from shouting abuse at them on the battlefield but was kind of a step in the right direction. Skyfire seemed to have forgiven him for all the muttered comments about hooking up with Starscream and flittering off back to the Decepticons. The Dinobots probably hadn't understood half his accusations in the first place, but Grimlock stopped sharpening his sword whenever Cliffjumper walked into the common room. That was an improvement. Fearing for his life because of giant dumb dinosaur death machines had been less than pleasant.
Cliffjumper didn't stop picking fights with Sunstreaker, but come on. It was like the unofficial base sport among the Minibots: who could provoke the most ill-tempered mech in the Autobots and get away without dismemberment? Rumor had it that Cosmo had taken the trophy on that one by getting his set of nicks and dings via means other than a fight, but he apparently didn't kiss and tell. The little space-farer only blinked innocently and then looked smug when he thought the others weren't looking. Sunstreaker just looked inscrutable. Really shiny, intimidating, hotter than melted slag, and inscrutable.
…fraggit.
Not that Cliffjumper was drooling too much over the details. He'd gotten some, uh, 'detailing' himself after mending fences with Mirage. It hadn't really gone anywhere, but that was to be expected. Just because he'd - grudgingly - apologized for accusing Mirage of being a traitor didn't make the noblemech any less of a stuck-up elitist with pomp and circumstance parading up his tailpipe on a daily basis. Cliffjumper had been somewhat surprised that they'd gotten as far as making out in the hallway, to be honest. Mirage came off as too much of a snob for a good time.
Sure, he could be fun to hang out with. Mech had a sneaky sense of humor almost as stealthy as that slagging invisibility cloak of his. Cliffjumper could admit that, and even enjoy it. He'd been getting along better with the noblemech these days. They'd been hanging more often because it seemed like their off-shifts were coinciding more lately. A lot more, actually.
It was a little weird how much time they were spending together, when Cliffjumper stopped to think about it. There were the scutwork shifts they somehow pulled on Tuesdays, spending ten hours at a time cleaning and rewiring and bemoaning how grubby Earth was. It made the post-shift wipe-down in the washracks easier having a buddy along to help, especially one so liberal with the aftercare polish, but Cliffjumper was still trying to figure out what he'd done wrong to get moved from his previous slot. Prowl had yanked him away from being Hoist and Grapple's assistant, which was ridiculous because he had been practically nice to them lately, what with trying not to snipe at them about the whole 'Let's trust the Constructicons and build something against Optimus Prime's express orders!' fiasco.
Although it wasn't just Tuesday's shift schedule that had been borked around, so maybe it hadn't been the red Minibot's fault. Cliffjumper and Mirage had short-range patrols together four times a week now, which was kind of strange because Bumblebee had been Cliffjumper's partner for that until Jazz decided to pull the yellow Minibot to another route all of a sudden. Oh, and they were doing cross-country patrols to New York City twice a month, now. Cliffjumper was fairly sure Mirage wasn't supposed to do those because he and Wheeljack's altmodes had issues with their tires and axles wearing out on long roadtrips. He'd asked the blue spy what officer he'd annoyed to get condemned to obeying the speed limit all the way across the USA, but Mirage had only smiled wanly and said something about pulling in some favors.
Must have been Jazz. Only Jazz would ride someone's aft over pulling in a few favors. Ratchet had to be in on it, too, because the medic was the one who always had to fix the damage. Mirage never said anything, but Cliffjumper always took the return trip slow because he knew the blue Autobot limped pretty bad by the time they got back to the West coast. Stupid spy never said anything, though. Cliffjumper kind of liked the pride thing, but it seemed more of a stupidity thing from his perspective.
Anyway, they were spending a lot of time together, and…huh. Most of it was off-shift, despite the sudden rash of swaps and mysterious replacements on the schedule. How did that keep happening? It wasn't like the red Minibot was seeking out the spy to sit next to the common room. Well, not more than two or three times a week. And he definitely hadn't been the one to make Sideswipe change seats on movie night. He'd just noticed one night that Mirage was suddenly his couch buddy instead and never gotten around to asking how exactly that had happened.
Eh, it wasn't worth worrying about. Cliffjumper had to admit Mirage made a good pal. They might have ventured into more, but Mirage had cooled off like a block of ice down the struts the second the red Minibot had tried to push things past some recreational groping. Suddenly, the noblemech had gone all formal and stilted, always retrieving Cliffjumper's energon ration and refusing to let him return the gesture, or turning up outside his quarters right before lights-out to say scrap like, "Might I inquire how your day has gone?"
He'd been unnerved at first, then irritated. It was just weird. He didn't think Mirage was mocking him, because the overly-polite questions and bizarre mannerisms just didn't match up with the mech who appeared next to him in the common room to drolly comment on the latest human video playing on the big screen. That still didn't make any more sense of what the spy was doing, however.
Cliffjumper had vowed not to let it get to him after he spotted Jazz and Hound smirking that one time. He was trying to avoid jumping to erroneous conclusions these days, but he'd decided this had to be some strange Special Operations friendship hazing ritual.
SpecOps could go chase a Seeker. Cliffjumper wasn't that easy to rile up, not anymore. He was perfectly capable of long-term planning and reaching goals, and he was determined to stop lashing out at the other Autobots. They had to work together, and who knew how long they'd be stuck on Earth at this rate? He had to get along with Grapple and Skyfire and the Primus-fragged Aerialbots and, yes, okay, Mirage.
Cliffjumper had other plans, too. The Autobots had changed here on Earth, and sometimes for the better. Working this closely with the Ark crew had confirmed them all as trustworthy (for the most part), and Cliffjumper had ended up taking a second look at some mechs. And then a third and fourth look, too, depending on the mech.
Like Red Alert. What with the Security Director's new sensor suite, everybody had been looking at him a little different, but none more so than Cliffjumper. He'd been keeping track. Red Alert had a schedule, of a sort, and a careful observer - well, still couldn't predict it, because no mech got to be Security Director by being predictable, but at least could get a vague idea of when his slot on the schedule would come up. Maybe. Not really. Cliffjumper over-prepared for everything, anyway, so just knowing he was somewhere on the schedule gave him a planning point.
And he had a plan, alright.
The best plans to get laid of mechs and Minibots often go wrong, but Cliffjumper was determined to prove that adage incorrect. He hadn't been able to think straight since the Vikingcon versus Saxonbot showdown in the common room, and now his systems ran hot whenever a history documentary came up on TV. Just…Primus surfing a longboat, Red Alert had 'verified' Mirage's identity so hard he could have just reformatted the spy into a bicycle and ridden him home.
As Warpath had put it, "Yow! Pow! Blammo!"
Cliffjumper hadn't been able to stop staring. He hadn't wanted to. He'd stared at Mirage the rest of the night, watching the blue Autobot sit among the Saxonbots wearing a dazed little smile. For days afterward, Cliffjumper had slipped into vivid fantasies of that kiss every time he saw the spy. All he could imagine was a hand guiding Mirage's helm, another hand clamped lower down and twice as possessive, fierce aggression nearly forcing Mirage down to his knees as the blue mech gasped and tried not to whimper under the pressure. Wow.
Mirage had been oddly reluctant to talk about it, which was a shame. Cliffjumper wanted details of the Cosmo/Sunstreaker incident, but he burned for details of that kiss. The few times it'd been brought up since then, the noblemech had thrown a quick look at Cliffjumper and changed the subject as if embarrassed. Bluestreak could get anyone talking, however, and Mirage had admitted in a near-mumble that getting grabbed and taken like that was how he liked it. Then he'd given Cliffjumper an almost flustered look and excused himself from the conversation.
The red Minibot could understand. That kiss had been smoking hot, but kind of public. Mirage was usually a reserved kind of Autobot. Getting thrown down on the common room couch and kissed senseless would probably do him some good, but the blue mech wasn't really the type to admit that's how he wanted it.
Could be fun. Lots of fun. Mmm, doing it Vikingbot-style: raiding and conquering the Saxonbots. Cliffjumper couldn't wait to give it a try himself, but Red Alert wasn't really the throw-downable-est of Autobot officers. That's was okay. Cliffjumper still wanted some of that fantastic kiss for himself, and luckily, Red Alert was not averse to some in-depth identity verification. A mech just had to be prepared when the schedule came around to his turn.
Which Cliffjumper was, and frag yes it was going to be great.
Red Alert's optics had that sleepy look that meant his systems were still slowly ticking up toward fully online when he confronted the red Minibot in the corridor, and Cliffjumper grinned. He let the taller mech catch him and go into full clingwrap-mode, wrapping around him. There were benefits to being a Minibot, and taking a larger mech as a lover certainly ranked up in the Top 5. Bulkier builds were a bit harder to toss around like Cliffjumper preferred, but he wasn't one to hold that against a mech. Not everybody could have Mirage's trim frametype.
"Hey there, Red Alert," the Minibot crooned as he gently pulled on the taller mech's shoulder. "Can you stand up for me? That's a good boy…"
The Security Director didn't object to being mech-handled off his chosen perch. So long as there was constant contact somewhere, his field-sensors were happy. Cliffjumper kept one hand on the taller mech's shoulder and reached with his EM field. Tired contentment and a recognition of 'Identify confirmed: Autobot Cliffjumper. Mission accomplished.' tickled his palm. The red Minibot pushed back with a sizzle of excess charge through his arm, lighting his field up with something more…risqué.
It was the circuit-level equivalent of a waggled optic ridge and, "Interested?"
Red Alert shivered, optics dimming to deep cobalt even as his systems purred steadily toward online. 'Yes.'
Awwww yeah.
Cliffjumper's grin widened into a full smile, and he firmly grasped the top edge of the Security Director's chest plate to hold him in place when Red Alert would have vacuum-sealed himself against the Minibot again. That wasn't what Cliffjumper wanted. Red Alert tended to be overly controlling, but the smaller Autobot wanted to be in charge, here.
He clearly remembered black fingers holding a blue helm still; his other hand reached out and stroked down the side of Red Alert's face. It didn't look quite right, didn't feel the same as the excited liquid rush he got imagining this same mech kissing Mirage's bolts loose, but that was okay. He was getting hot just remembering it, anyway. Of course it wasn't as good as his imagination at the moment! Red Alert was still perking up toward fully aware. Part of the officer's attention remained locked into meshing with Cliffjumper's field, running the compulsive security checks that were a frag and a half more fun these days. Cliffjumper liked having his lover's full attention. He could be patient.
The shivering picked up as the red Minibot slowly drew Red Alert closer, allowing their fields to spark off each other and mesh all the way down their bodies. The hand not holding onto the taller mech traced random patterns down Red Alert's neck cables, plucking them like guitar strings for the jerking shudders it caused. The fingers slid upward, seeking more sensitive areas to caress. He wouldn't be happy until Red Alert melted into a mewling puddle. That was the kind of control Cliffjumper liked, and probably the reason he'd unfed so hard watching Red Alert kiss Mirage's knees to rubber. Cliffjumper wasn't just proficient in operating guns, after all.
As Perceptor had put it, "You possess a musician's hands, capable of playing any instrument of your choosing. It is most unfortunate war has precipitously cut short a potential maestro. The chording capabilities inherent in your knuckle-joint flexibility rival that of Jazz, but yet you say you have never touched an instrument."
"Not a musical one, anyway." Cliffjumper had always found Perceptor's ability to minutely examine every single part of his body to be sexy. There was nothing like a mech who saw a berthmate on the molecular level.
The innuendo in the red Minibot's voice had caught the scientist's interest. "Your meaning?"
"I mean I can play all kinds of chords." Insert optic ridge waggle and 'Interested?' here. "C'mere and I'll show you."
He'd then proceeded make Perceptor gasp out the entire score to a human popsong, one stifled cry at a time, just by touching the microscope in the right places. Cliffjumper had a knack for instruments, alright. And right now, he had an instrument named Red Alert to play with.
"Too bad I'd never get you to agree to just fragging right here," Cliffjumper said, somewhere between wistful and serious. "Don't think you're that type." Too bad, because the red Minibot had been getting seriously revved lately over the idea. Just the thought of walking up, grabbing what he wanted, and having his way right then and there sent bolts of lust from sensor projections to bumpers. The more spectators the better. Cliffjumper was an impulsive mech, and sometimes going with an impulse was a really good thing.
Doing just this much out in the hallway right now was spinning his tires, in fact. He could almost feel optics on them, but there was nobody around when he glanced over his shoulder. Still, better to play it safe. The heat in the area was ramping higher the longer he played with Red Alert's neck cable's, and he was taking both of them off to Ratchet for a maintenance check as soon as they were finished. Their vent fans were unnaturally loud!
That would be later, however, and this was now. He was sure the Security Director wouldn't want to spontaneously overload right there in the hall from some fondling, so he slid his hand back up to Red Alert's face. He stroked his fingers down the sensitive facial seams. "You awake enough to be thrown over my shoulder and carried off to a berth?" Cliffjumper joked, and he could have sworn the temperature in the hallway spiked like someone had just opened the door to a smelter.
Huh. Maybe Red Alert had a hidden Saxonbot side. Who knew?
Pleasure-dimmed optics spied his thumb passing by, and the Security Director turned his head fractionally to lick at it.
- except tongue and finger never connected. There was a tunk of metal-on-metal as the Security Director took a startled step back, and Cliffjumper, well, jumped. There was a sudden, spitzing wall of electromagnetic field between them, positively fizzling with frustrated arousal against Cliffjumper's hand. Red Alert's optics went wide and totally alert, systems jumping to ready-status, and Cliffjumper froze in shock.
The two Autobots stared in utter surprise at each other, and it wasn't because they didn't recognize the EM field's signature. It was because they did.
Red Alert relaxed just as suddenly as he'd tensed. Much to the red Minibot's confusion, a pleased smile crossed his face. He leaned to the side just a bit and ventured a hand out to pat Cliffjumper on the head. "That's a good boy," he parroted cheerfully before turning and sauntering away.
Leaving Cliffjumper with his hands still outstretched, grasping nothing. "Wh…what just..?"
Nothing whispered an EM field against his palms, and then nothing gradually became something - or rather someone - and Cliffjumper had been trying so slagging hard here on Earth not to jump to anymore conclusions, but the crackling charge pushing into his hands was really making that difficult. "I was this close to getting laid," he said, sounding befuddled even to his own audios as Mirage faded into existence in his hands. "Do you have any idea how long I'd been planning that?"
"Do you have any idea how long I've been planning this?" Mirage said, and Cliffjumper noticed just where his hands were, and frag him sideways with a RotorRooter if he even needed his imagination to recreate that wonderful, recharge-haunting moment in the common room. Because his hands were just perfect holding onto blue instead of black helm armor, and that wide-opticked look of vulnerable hope was hitting all the right Vikingbot cues to divide and conquer, and - and - Cliffjumper was having trouble with impulse control right now. Or was he jumping to conclusions again?
The blue noblemech pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and gave the smaller red Autobot the world's most uncertain smile. "I, ah, I didn't mean to impose," he said softly, although he clearly, clearly had, and that made no sense whatsoever. Why the frag would the mech be lurking about in the halls watching Cliffjumper, then say that?
It suddenly struck Cliffjumper that Mirage's bizarre, stiff behaviorisms were manners. Formal, elite, Tower mech manners that'd gotten switched on because the Autobots could take the noblemech out of the Towers but nothing could take the Towers out of the noblemech. He'd been pulling this slag for months now, all beginning with…oh. Ooooh.
Cliffjumper looked at his hand. He looked at the mech whose cool stare was wholly off-set by the snapping fire of his EM field and the oddly desperate look in his optics. Mirage looked like a starving mech looking through a window at the finest highgrade. It was kind of hard not to jump straight to a conclusion based on that, but after careful consideration (at least two seconds' worth), the conclusion Cliffjumper came to involved following Red Alert's sterling example and attempting to kiss the blue noblemech and all his slagging Tower subtleties right through the floor.
Scrap him for recyclables if the last five months of scrambled schedules didn't make more sense now.
[* * * * *]
Accidental Love Story" - illustration by Shibara available on Ao3
[* * * * *]