A friend of mine had been pestering me lately (and justly so!) about writing anything in general and something about Rust in particular. So here's a little fluff drabble to appease her and to, hopefully, kick me back into proper writing mode.

It takes place shortly after episode "Possession".

For a friend

A storm, a cave, and some Rust and Waspinator fluff

The energon storm came, as usual, suddenly. The unexpected gust of wind had blown Waspinator off the sky, and that was it for the 'how to dodge' training for today.

Rust wouldn't have been opposed to staying out and trying to bait the skies into blasting him to oblivion, but Waspinator wasn't too keen on the idea, so they sought refuge in a nearby cave. It was more of a shallow crack in the rockface, but it provided shelter from the elements raging outside.

rust sprawled at the entrance, where he at least had a nice view, while Waspinator nestle at the very back, where he felt at least marginally safe.

Something wasn't right though, Rust noticed. Time after time, a small whimper would reach his sensitive ears. They seemed to coincide with particularly loud thunders, but that was ridiculous. Waspinator couldn't be...

"Are you afraid of the storm?" he asked over static filled radio.
"No."
A moment of silence passed.

Thunder rolled.
Waspinator shuddered.

"You sure you're not--"
"NO!" the wasp backed the negation with a clawful of pebbles thrown at Rust's head.

Of course he wasn't afraid of stupid storms. He was afraid of malicious, treacherous ghosts lurking IN the storms, searching for a body to steal...

The storm did its thing, Waspinator whimpered, and Rust sighed.

"Oy, Wasp!"
"Waspinator not scared of storm!"
"Yeah, whatever. But I am."

Another moment of silence passed, and the wolf growled impatiently.

"Oy! I just said I was scared of the storm!"

The ridiculousness of the statement aside, Waspinator was too busy eying the shadow that looked suspiciously like one air commander to care.
"So?" he buzzed, part indifferent, part annoyed and all over scared.

"So?!" Rust's voice rose in incredulous outrage. "You're my bloody roomy! When I say I'm scared of the bloody storm, you're supposed to move your lazy aft from there, and haul it over here, and hug me and pet me and say it's gonna be alright until I feel better!"

Now that had to be the most ridiculous notion Rust ever had, and he was the guy who once thought that practicing a disarming strike on Megatron was a good idea. Waspinator could only stare incredulously, while some small part of his mind wondered what was a possibility that some passing Autobot ghosts had possessed his roommate.

But then a lighting stroke just outside the cave, and the winged shadow on the wall lunged at him with the deafening thunder.

Next second had Waspinator burying his face and limbs in the fluffy fur. He clung to the wolf, and he tugged at the wolf's fur, and he mumbled some incoherent (self)reassuring babble until he felt better and, despite the storm still raging outside, he managed to fell in a shallow recharge.

Rust looked critically at the wasp huddled at his side, listened to the quiet hum of his systems for a moment, and finally flicked his ear.
"There. Much better." he murmurer smugly, and looked back outside to cherish the storm.

fin