re_alignment_logs | ....bento in bed?

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....bento in bed?

WHO: Drift and Vandal (semi-closed ish? Ping us if you want in)
WHERE: The Medibay
WHEN: Nowish?
WHAT: Drift has found actual food with sufficient weeaboo content and thinks of the woman who is screamingly tired of twinkies
WARNINGS: it starts with a pink bento box with cherry blossoms and a bunny on it. WHO KNOWS what horrors await!!??

Wreckers don't do subtle, but on occasion, Drift still does stealth. And so he slips into the Medibay, late in the afternoon, carefully timing it so that he's not seen. He still has a few smears of gunk from the Junk Pile on his armor, but he didn't want to wait.

"Vandal?" he whispers, slipping toward the back where they'd set up a smaller berth for her. "I have something for you."

Something, in fact, that he's holding behind his back.

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Well aren't they just a pair? She hasn't even known him that long and she already feels like she's found one of the best friends she's ever had in her life.

Smiling up at him tiredly, lips twitching.

"You know. The one problem here- I wish you were small enough to hug. Because I would hug the shit out of you."

He grins. "Not sure that's the best expression for it, though. But anything I can do to make you feel better...?"

Because he was alone after his worst moment: Wing was dead, he'd turned his back on the City he didn't deserve. And it had been lonely and he'd wished for someone to understand, or just not to judge.

"Well, you know what I mean."

She'll settle to squeeze his hand and move back over to start scratching behind his damn silly ear-fins again.

"You're kind of the best friend I've ever had."

Sadly, that's not a long list to compete with.

"I do." He was just trying to take the sharpest, most poignant edge off the rawness of the moment.

Drift tilts his head into the scritches on his helm. It felt good, but mostly he recognized the simple need for something harmless and nice to do.

"I'd like to be better."

"I can't really imagine any way you could be," She says, absently petting the flat of the helm fin, "I mean. Shit, I kind of just told you the worst thing I've ever done, which was pretty fucking bad."

She pauses to laugh humorlessly.

"And your response is to tell me I'm not a bad person. I think you're pretty far up the 'great and accepting friend' scale."

A beat.

"And you brought me lunch in a cute little box. You've put up with my bullshit since I landed my dying ass on this rock. And you haven't asked a single thing in return. I don't even know what I could plausibly have that you would want, but shit, Drift..."

She shrugs, sighing.

"I don't even know what to say."

He gives a smile, but there's a sort of sad, wistful edge to it. "I could be Wing." Wing was better, in just about everything.

"But the point is, you know it's bad and you feel bad about it. I...Deadlock didn't. Ever." That makes you better than him by a long shot, Vandal.

"All I ask of you, of anyone, is a chance." He has a lot to make up for. "So...just give me that much."

"Yeah, you could be. But I don't want you to be Wing. I like you how you are, you big dork."

She squeezes the thin white metal.

"You're not that guy anymore, though. As far as I can see."

There's an affectionate tug at his ear, firm enough to get his attention.

"Look pal, I don't care who or what you used to be. You're my friend now, and I'll give you all the chances you want and then some. But you're also going to have to bear hanging out with me. That means listening to this crappy, five-hundred-year-old music with me and possibly watching bad movies if I ever find some."

Another tug, this time turning his head so she can stare right into those blue optics, a wry smile stretching her face.

"Are you up to the task?"

It's honestly the first time anyone's ever told Drift he was good...as he was. That he wasn't the ex-Decepticon who had no right to fight with them, or that he wasn't better than he was.

He honestly has no idea how to respond to that.

So he defaults to defending Wing. "Wing wouldn't judge you, either. If you told him what you told me."

Ow. You know, for the record, that finial is sort of sensitive. So he follows her lead, meeting her gaze. And grinning back. "I think I can handle that."

"That's good for him, he's a nice guy like that. But my point is, I'd rather you were just you."

She releases his finial and gives his head a pat.

"Good. I would expect that much."

So now her best friend is a samurai car robot from another planet.

"But...?" Wh-why would anyone choose Drift over Wing? Drift knows he wouldn't. "_{...thank you.}"

"I don't think I'll ever get the hang of that singing though." He shakes his head.

Good then. He gets her point. She suddenly feels particularly stubborn, like a kid refusing replacement for a broken favorite toy.

"Come on, you're a regular Barry White," The engineer shrugs, laying back on her makeshift bed.

"You remember the lyrics, right? I don't cry when my dog runs away..."

She prompts him to follow with the next line.

"Who's Barry White?" He's getting that feeling again, being slightly over his head. But she seems happy. And Wing was right: it was good to make someone else happy, it was the best feeling in the world.

He likes her voice better. Her real one, not the one through the Rig. There's a pause and a wince, because he knows his voice is probably terrible. And he still has no sense of rhythm at all. In his defense, it's a hard rhythm.

"I don't get...angry at the bills I have...to pay?" Not that he knows what bills are. He figures the worst that could happen is she'd laugh.

"A singer on earth who was famous for his amazingly smooth voice." It's only fair she explains it to him. She won't leave him to flounder too much.

"Good! You do remember."

She doesn't care if he can't actually sing. She can't carry a tune either, so there you go. It's more funny that she can actually get him to try.

"Lovin' is what I got."

"Yeah, that's...not me." Drift will sing, for her, but he's not delusional.

He has no idea why she likes this, but it's a small enough thing to do. And he almost--almost--actually gets the tune this time. "I said remember that."

"Is this how it's done? You eat and then sing?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself."

She rolls over, scooting enough to lean against his arm and actually get decently comfortable.

"Well it's not really a thing we do. I mean not necessarily. But I guess it could be. I'll teach you some other songs, too."

The engineer grabs a small box on the nightstand, projecting a VI screen from it and a list of titles.

"Pick one."

Being hard on himself is pretty much what Drift has always done.

He stares at the projection, careful not to move the shoulder she's leaning against. The titles mean nothing to him. "I don't know...something easy?"

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....bento in bed?

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