A/N: Man, I suck at crossposting... Anyway! Wrote this late last year based on a Rung/Skids headcanon shared with me by scraplette over on Tumblr. Now canon-divergent in that there's reference to Rung still practicing but this assumes Skids is not, never was and would not become his patient. Because OTP blinders. Enjoy!
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Skids startled awake with impact singing through his struts, the ache flickering his optics as he onlined them to stare up at the ceiling. For a moment he didn't understand what had happened or where he was, and panic nibbled along his tank when he couldn't hear Swerve babbling in his sleep.
Then his memories of going into recharge unzipped and he rubbed one hand down in his face. His joints hadn't all quite got the message that he was awake and they creaked when he flailed blindly with that same hand to catch the edge of the recharge slab and hauled himself into a half-sitting position. He squinted over the edge and– yes, sure enough, Rung was just settling himself into the center of the slab, still asleep. Skids stared as though Rung were awake to notice, or as if the feeling behind it was enough to shake him out of recharge.
One of Rung's hands lashing out and nearly smacking him in the face as the bot himself snuffled in sleep made Skids snort and finally stand, groaning more than was probably necessary. Only probably, though, because for all that the noise was perhaps over-dramatic, Skids didn't actually have a frame of reference for how to react after being shoved out of the berth for the third time in a row.
Really, how did Rung keep doing that? Skids weighed something like three times what Rung did. The first time it had happened, Skids could accept some responsibility for. He hadn't quite been into recharge when Rung started his habitual wriggling and flailing, and he distinctly remembered scooting over past the point that there was nowhere but empty air to scoot over into. But every time since then, he'd been a dead weight, deep in recharge– a feat only accomplished by falling into recharge before Rung, beating out the constant jabs to the side and kicks to the shin and occasional backhand to the face that accompanied sharing a sleeping space with Rung. This time in particular, Skids had decided to recharge against the wall, so this was frankly becoming ridiculous.
Still tired and now grumpy at having been so rudely awoken– and at the new ding in his arm that was shaped distinctly like Rung's elbow– Skids very nearly plopped himself right back down on the floor to finish recharging. He also considered, albeit briefly, going back to the suite he now shared with Swerve. Looking down at Rung, though, he couldn't quite make himself do it. Rung was always so apologetic when Skids told him they'd had another incident, and even imagining the look on Rung's face if he should wake up to find Skids still on the floor sent a jolt through his spark. The look on his face should he wake to find Skids gone, Skids couldn't even imagine. Besides that, there was something new in Rung's familiar restlessness now. Rung never moved a lot at once in recharge, really, rather he was a succession of short, jerking motions that started and stopped without rhyme or reason. Now, though, those movements had taken a decidedly focused bent.
The hand that had nearly nailed Skids in the face twitched and flopped, fingers splaying and curling around nothing. Rung's other hand, which had been settled over his torso, swept across on the other side, fingers fanned wide. Tension tugged at the lines of his face, eyebrows drawing close together, and a distressed sound whispered from deep in his chest, weak and wavering. He was looking for something, someone, whether he was aware of it or not, and was hurt to find himself alone.
Skids was climbing back on the slab before he could quite remember meaning to be. Rung's knee bent up sharply and caught him in the hip as he climbed up, but it was worth it to feel Rung relax under his touch. Still, it would have been nice if Rung relaxed fully under his touch. Instead, there were about three seconds of blessed stillness before Rung started wiggling again. It was just wiggling, though, so Skids sighed, pressed himself against Rung's side, and tried to drop back into recharge.
He had just about gone under when Rung's arm flailed wide again, and this time he did get Skids right in the face. Skids grunted and rolled up into a sitting position, narrowly avoided another knee, and felt determination course through his lines.
Planting himself onto his side with a thunk, Skids pulled Rung against him back to chest, holding him as closely and as tightly as their frames allowed, trapping Rung's arms in the hug and then twining their fingers as an afterthought. Rung's legs began to twitch, but Skids cut that off by throwing one of his own over top of them and pinning them both down and back against his other leg. After taking a few moments to seek signs of discomfort or distress and finding none, Skids let himself lean fully into the embrace, curling around Rung as much as he was able.
There was a moment that Rung half woke and trilled a questioning note. Skids offered him a reassuring squeeze of the hand and a shhh against his audial. Rung hummed, squeezed in return, snuggled into the embrace and fell right back into recharge, the lucky bot.
Rung's snuggling was fine, but then he continued to wriggle and twitch. He didn't seem to be trying to escape– if anything, he pressed into the contact– so Skids dared holding him more securely still. It kept Rung down but didn't settle him; Skids could practically feel the restlessness zinging along his lines. How he got any real rest like this, Skids hadn't a clue.
Skids pulled that thought up short before it could slide by him, turned it over in his mind. Almost subconsciously, his engine began to rumble at a low, steady key that had once been the only thing that could help Glitch slip back into recharge after a nightmare. The effect it had on Rung now was slight, but Skids could feel the difference everywhere they touched. Intrigued, he took his engine through several notes in succession, not quite a song, holding each note just long enough to observe Rung's reactions. Some notes helped, some made no difference and a couple actually seemed to make the problem worse. Skids was coming close to the end of his range when he hit upon the winner.
Rung relaxed so suddenly and so thoroughly as the latest attempt vibrated through him that Skids actually pulled a hand free to splay over Rung's chest. Feeling the strong, steady pulse of Rung's spark, hot behind the glass, allowed him to settle down again and to appreciate Rung's stillness. Only the hand Skids had released was moving again; the fingers were grasping at air, though the movements were more subdued than normal and Rung didn't appear stressed, as he had before. The motions didn't cease quite the moment Skids slipped his fingers back between Rung's, but they did cease once Rung had curled his own fingers into the hold in turn.
Back in the day, Glitch was content to feel the vibration passed through a shoulder pressed companionably to his own and had only needed the rumble to slip into recharge to begin with; he slept peacefully long after it had stopped and he'd been left alone. Rung, it seemed, wasn't so easily pacified. When Skids tried silencing his engine or changing keys, the familiar restless energy was back in force. Skids hummed, curious and contemplative, as he keyed his engine back to the note that had so relaxed Rung– sure enough, it was just as effective the second time around. What position Skids took– more specifically, how much contact he maintained with Rung– was also a clear factor. Trying to ease up on the hold he had on Rung in any way saw a subdued but appreciable return to old habits.
Huffing a laugh at nothing in particular, Skids cycled his optics offline. He settled into the embrace, set his engine to idle at that special note and let himself finally, blessedly slip back into recharge. In his arms, Rung was still, his own systems humming with content. If this is what it took to sleep beside Rung uninterrupted, Skids rather thought he could deal with it.