Script Title: Domestic Electronics, Pt. 28

Warning to Audience: This barely resembles Transformers at all. You're better off not reading.

Show Rating: G

Continuity Stage: IDW/More Than Meets The Eye AU

Characters: Decepticon Justice Division, Pharma, Scavengers, Bob the non-Insecticon

Theatre Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

Acting Motivation (Prompt): There was a translation error, and then Shibara drew a picture based on that error, and then I had to give it a story. It all went downhill from there.


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Pt. 28: The morning after the night before, or "Tarn Snow is a bastard."

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"Stop hitting me with that."

I continued to be assaulted by a toothbrush. Na-na-na-na!

Behold the glamorous morning life of a working man. At least that's what I typically classified myself as, but right now I was more like sludge scraped off the bottom of - I blearily checked the table next to me - two coffee cups and four bottles of soda. And one tiny bottle of that 5-Hour Energy crap that never worked anytime I wanted it to. Apparently that had been a conspiracy to lower my guard. So much energy, last night. So much.

What the heck had I been thinking, drinking on a Sunday night? I knew I'd have to work this morning, and yet I'd still indulged in caffeine. I hadn't fallen asleep until 4 AM, and I'd gotten the grand total of 2 hours of sleep. Today was going to suck. My head was already throbbing from the caffeine crash and lack of sleep.

On the other hand, I'd binge-watched four seasons of Game of Thrones in one day. It hadn't been done completely by choice. Tarn had been as caught up in the show as I was, due to politics, gore, and our ongoing subtle warfare over who exactly ruled this apartment. He'd sat on my head and hissed menace down at me anytime I mentioned turning the TV off after the episode finished. He read too much into how applicable the show was to his own life.

Note to self: make sure the toilet was safe to sit on before sitting on it from now on. Porcelain thrones were not meant to be Iron Thrones.

Although Tarn would probably leap on the chance to flush Megatron down it.

In any case, we'd reached the end of Season 4 by 2 AM, and I hadn't managed to get to sleep until 4 AM. I didn't even remember passing out at long last, but here I was on the couch. I sat up slowly, scrubbing the back of my hand across my face. "Uuuuuuuugh." The toothbrush bopped me again. Too slow, Joe. "I'm up, I'm up," I protested. "Don't wanna be, but I am."

Vos' usual beeping hadn't budged me this morning. Honestly, I didn't remember him. I must have slept through his loudest beeping. The little glitch had given up and called out the big guns to help him get me up for work.

Big, as in small. "Go away," I moaned at the tiny domestic electronic scolding me. Swear to Prowl's precious rules, the smaller the minibot, the feistier they came out of the packaging. Chromedome backed me up on this theory.

Na-na-na-na! The proto-human on the couch better get his primordial self up and ready for work, or else.

"Or else what?" I mumbled as I wobbled upright.

Na-na-na-na! She'd think of something. Don't tempt her. Nickel clung to my shirt collar until I was upright, then launched. Her back-mounted rocket meant she could hover in front of me and nag more efficiently from eye level. The toothbrush waggled at me in threat despite it being three times her height. Na-na-na-na! Na-na! How dare I? How dare I fail to brush my teeth before bed? Sugar! I'd slept with a mouth full of sugar-tainted saliva and was probably developing gingivitis right this very moment.

And I hadn't even gone to bed! I'd collapsed on the couch like the uncivilized heathen she'd always known I was, without the decency to put the wreckage of my night of debauchery and binge-watching away. There were dishes in the sink waiting to be done!

If they weren't now, they would be by the time I woke up properly. Nickel zipped up to look over my head, and her scolding took on a distinctly ugly tone. Yeah, she saw you, Helex. She saw the crusty dried nacho dip mess. And Tesarus, there was no hiding the soda can stuck halfway through his torso grinder. To the kitchen with them!

My eyelids felt like sandpaper, but I rolled my eyes anyway. Far as Bob and I could tell, the Prion model line had been recalled because of scolding just like this. The A and D-lines didn't react well to an unaligned model marching in and assuming control, even if it was just control of maintenance. Personally, I thought a repairwork electrodomestic was a pretty useful model to put on the market, what with how often I had to bring in Kaon alone for regular repairs, but man, I could just imagine what kind of chaos could be sewn by having a teensy-tiny authority figure unrecognized by either side march in and start hassling both. Add in compatibility issues with the Prion impression software, and you get a model recall.

My Nickel was the only one on the Cybertronian Registry who hadn't been returned, and that was by luck alone. The customer who'd dropped her off at the store was fine with me taking her, but I still got the occasional call from the Transformer company asking why I wouldn't return her for credit. The Black Block Consortia really wanted to snap her up for their collector auctions, too. Somehow, I'd ended up with another weird, rare model by complete chance. Bob bumped fists with me for that. His mob had started with a collector item List 'bot. The Black Block Consortia people kept calling him, too.

Anyway, I'd handled the Prion software problem by giving her to Tarn. He was the lucky 'bot stuck as her owner, while she regarded me as one of the more troublesome household appliances. I got the feeling I'd dodged a bullet on letting her impress on Tarn instead of me, especially when she got in her moods. She tended to grab him by the mask and read him the riot act in irritated na-na-nas. The first time she'd done that, I'd laughed so hard I fell over. The look in his little startled optics! He'd been so taken aback by her temerity that he'd done what she told him, and it'd set the precedent for everyone else. When Nickel started nagging, the apartment jumped to obey.

Such alarm. Very meek. Wow.

If that was how her model treated their owners, I could easily see why it got recalled. Tarn had scooted along on her orders out of sheer surprise initially, then buckled down, swallowed his pride, and put her in charge of everyone's health for our own good. She'd immediately decided he knew what he was doing. That was the entire extent of the fight over her place in the apartment hierarchy. As long as she controlled our health, she'd follow Tarn wherever he led, and that put her in firm place of…I don't even know what. Team doctor? Knee-height minion of doom?

Whatever position she filled, it had 'Cross at your peril' written all over it. Tesarus and Helex were hustling their little butts toward the kitchen under a hail of Naaaaaaaaaaa-na-na-na! Na! Na! from the tiny flying pesk coming in for landing on my shoulder again.

"Make coffee!" I called after the retreating 'bots. Tesarus whirred acknowledgement.

Na!

"Look, you," I said in a perfectly reasonable tone as I staggered into the bathroom. "I need coffee to exist. Without coffee, I'll make it onto the bus and fall asleep."

Na-na-na-na! Oh, and whose fault was it that I'd been drinking last night?

"Gorrammit, it's caffeine. I'm not hung over!"

Na-naa! Nickel would believe it when I stopped demanding hair-of-the-dog for breakfast.

"I have coffee every day - "

Na!" Addict.

"Am not!"

Na-na-na. Nickel dropped in a burst of rockets to land on the sink rim, where she began to skate around assembling toothpaste and floss. I didn't use to floss. She insisted I floss every day now, the pipsqueak tyrant. Small angry grumbles kept up a constant scolding as she measured out toothpaste onto her toothbrush scepter. Na-na. Na! Na-naaa-na. Na-na?

"Yeah, yeah, I'll listen to you next time when you try to cut me off." I should have listened to her last night, but I didn't think I'd go through two pots of coffee before midnight. It hadn't seemed like that much spread out over two seasons of intense TV drama.

Na-na-na-naaa-na-na-na. More scolding. She heaved the toothbrush up to me.

While I obediently brushed my teeth in an effort to wake up and become human in time for work, she amused herself using the sink for a skate park. The wheels on her feet made her surprisingly fast. Every laundry day, I cursed her speed. I did this to myself, you know. I was the one who introduced her to Tarn, and she followed his orders when it came to stealing all my left socks.

I did get more exercise, these days. Chasing tiny robots around had become an interactive sport. If I wasn't after one or the other of them, Nickel was running them down for check-ups.

Speaking of chasing robots. "Did Tarn tinfoil the john?" I squinted at the toilet. Tinfoil, and evidently stick every pencil and pen I owned in a familiar display on the inside of the lid.

Na-na.

"If you're Daenerys, does that make the rest of us dragons or Lannisters?" I spat toothpaste into the sink and pressed the heel of my hand into my temple. The headache of too little sleep wasn't going away. "If I'm a Lannister, I offer my kingdom for an aspirin."

Nickel na-ed at me tartly. Rockets popped, and off she went to nab some painkillers. See, that was the advantage of being considered one of the household 'bots. I got taken care of just like them.

Grinning tiredly, I settled onto the throne. Work was coming.


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