Mysterious Ways [Transformers, Hot Spot/Silverbolt, PG-13]
Title: Mysterious Ways; or, The Perils of High-Grade; or, The Worst Part Was Repainting The Ceiling Afterwards
Author: Atalan (writing journal: brightwanderer)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: After-effects of inebriation, mention of drunk!sex.
Word count: 1776
Summary: Well, it's a learning experience...
Prompt: Hot Spot/Silverbolt: the morning after - "Oops. Sorry, Silverbolt."
Notes: Apologies for my general crapness over my prompts in the last week or so - a bunch of personal stuff jumped me, then I went away, now I have flu. Joys. I shall be working through my unwritten prompts as quickly as I can, hopefully the wait won't detract too much from the fics. :)
It wasn't the first time he'd woken up blurry and aching from overcharge - the Protectobots might've been new-sparked, but they'd taken to high-grade like - what was that human phrase? - like ducks to water - but it was the first time his groan of misery had been echoed by another vocaliser.
Hot Spot jolted upright and wished that he hadn't. The room spun impressively around him, and he offlined his optics, which didn't seem to help in the slightest, as fragments of memory jabbed into his pained processor.
"Silverbolt?" he said after a moment, wincing at the sound of his own voice.
Silverbolt (he was ninety percent sure it was Silverbolt - had to be a flyer, anyway, he could feel the wings) groaned again, and came out with a garbled, questioning noise that might possibly have meant something to someone less hungover than Hot Spot was right now. More memories were surfacing; he should've known better than to take Groove up on that drinking contest - mech might be smaller than him but he could hold his high-grade like he was subspacing it - and wherever the hell Air Raid had got the stuff from, it sure was potent. Then there'd been that stupid thing with the dares... Silverbolt had refrained from joining in, of course, and Hot Spot had tried to, but then Slingshot had said something - he couldn't remember what now - that had pissed him off enough to take him up on whatever idiot challenge had been in place at the time...
... in fact, he had a horrible, sinking feeling that said challenge might explain Silverbolt's presence in his berth. There had certainly been enough talk about interfacing. They were, after all, a group of ten young mechs just beginning to explore the world. It was only to be expected that the conversation would end up in the gutter after a couple of cubes and be last seen making a determined bid for the centre of the Earth by the point when no-one could see straight anymore.
"Hot Spot?"
Well, it was definitely Silverbolt. He couldn't quite decide if that was a good or bad thing. On the one hand, it'd be more embarrassing to have woken up with one of the other Aerials, since he didn't, y'know, actually find any of them half so attractive as Silverbolt. On the other hand, Silverbolt was, well, sensible, and rather private, and Hot Spot had a feeling that, once he woke up enough to think straight, things were going to get kind of awkward.
He didn't want awkwardness. Not with Silverbolt. He was way too good a friend. And going by what Hot Spot was remembering of last night, he was damned good in other ways, too.
"Yeah, 's me," he mumbled in response, finally bringing his optics online again and focusing them with difficulty on his companion. "I think... we may have failed to set a good example."
Silverbolt snorted in a way that might have been laughter or might have just been the fact that he was face down on the berth and didn't seem inclined to move. For all that he had to be feeling as terrible as Hot Spot, there was something languid and enticing about the way he was sprawled out there, wings twitching occasionally.
Unfortunately, just as Hot Spot was thinking that it might be worth trying to ignore the pounding in his cranial cavity and seeing if the nosecone on Silverbolt's back really was as sensitive as he remembered from last night, Silverbolt's processor seemed to boot up properly at last, causing him to sit bolt upright and glance around with startled optics.
"What--?" He squinted at Hot Spot with an endearingly severe frown. "Why am I in your berth?"
"Er." Hot Spot was too tired and pained to come up with anything other than the truth, or what he remembered of it. "I think they dared us. Or dared me. Or something."
He watched Silverbolt process that, frown giving way, for just a second, to a spark-piercing vulnerability that made Hot Spot want to wrap his arms around the jet and soothe him until it went away. Then Silverbolt's face closed off, and in a voice far too neutral for Hot Spot's comfort, he said, "I see."
"Whoa, wait, stop--" because Silverbolt was swinging his legs over the side of the berth and Hot Spot was too hungover to deal with this right now but he liked the idea of dealing with it later even less, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-- aw, man, my processor hasn't come right yet."
He leaned forward with all the grace and charm of a stunned Dinobot, and managed to hook his arms awkwardly about Silverbolt's middle and rest his chin on the jet's shoulder. Silverbolt stiffened up, but Hot Spot kept talking.
"I mean, I think there was a dare involved, but it wasn't, y'know, like that was all it... I mean, I like you, you like me - at least, I figure you like me, you haven't changed the code on your office door yet, anyhow - and it just kind of seemed like a good idea at the time."
The tension eased out of Silverbolt as Hot Spot rambled, though he twitched a shoulder pointedly to get him to stop leaning so heavily on his wings. Hot Spot would've heaved a sigh of relief if his vents hadn't been occupied trying to sort out his overheated and generally running below par systems. He even managed a weak grin against Silverbolt's shoulder.
"And, hey, it's not like it was bad or anything, right?"
Silverbolt hesitated, staring fixedly at the floor, and Hot Spot had a second's dreadful contemplation of just how bad his drunken attempts at interface might, in fact, have been, before Silverbolt reluctantly admitted, "To tell the truth, I, uh, don't actually remember much."
"Oh."
And while, on the one hand, that was better than the alternative Hot Spot had just been contemplating, on the other, it was kind of galling. It wasn't like Hot Spot himself recalled that much of the previous night's events, but he did remember how slagging hard he'd been trying to make Silverbolt feel good - and he sort of had a half-memory of some of the wonderful noises he'd been getting out of Silverbolt, and he'd figured he was at least making an impression. Not so much, apparently.
"Not that I'd know, anyway," muttered Silverbolt in a self-deprecating tone that Hot Spot could only attribute to the no doubt magnificent hangover now pounding its way through his processor. "Slingshot actually had the nerve to tell me I needed to 'get laid', in his words, the last time I had to discipline him." He paused, apparently stung afresh by Slingshot's taunt, and added, with uncharacteristic vehemence, "Little glitch."
"Well, hey, there you go, now you have."
Hot Spot wished he could blame the hangover for his vocaliser's apparent lack of connection to his higher functions, but the fact was that he had a tendency to insert foot firmly in mouth even when he wasn't contemplating pulling his own diodes out through his audio receptors to stop them throbbing.
He winced.
"I mean..."
"I should, probably, um, go."
Silverbolt shook himself free and stood up too quickly, swayed for a moment, then strode determinedly, stiffly, to the door. Hot Spot was still trying to cobble together some sort of sentence that was less than appallingly idiotic when Silverbolt hit the door controls and paused to let the door open fully.
And stayed paused. The door waited patiently, then, after some seconds, swished shut again with a happy beep. Silverbolt remained in place, optics on the now-closed door.
"Er... Silverbolt?"
"Hot Spot." Silverbolt's voice was calm, slightly distant, as though contemplating something far away. "Am I right in thinking that, at some point last night, we came in here and... left them to it?"
A prickle of apprehension ran through Hot Spot's sensor network as a quick scramble through his memory banks confirmed that this was, in fact, the case. Horrible possibilities swam before his aching optics.
"Yeah. Yeah, we did."
"I suppose that goes some of the way towards explaining why Fireflight is now painted a particularly horrible shade of green," said Silverbolt, still in that calm, distant voice. "It may even account for the fact that half of our number seem to be wearing parts of each other's armour, although I'm not quite sure how they've managed to attach Air Raid's wings to Streetwise's aft. What I am having difficulty with," and here his tone finally wavered, into what Hot Spot fervently hoped wasn't oncoming hysteria, "is understanding how Slingshot and Blades appear to have welded each other to the ceiling."
"High-grade possesses mysterious powers unknown to mortal mechs?" offered Hot Spot, wondering if it also possessed the power to somehow make things unhappen. "Are any of them awake yet?"
"Not unless you count Groove staring into space and working his way through 'nine million cubes of energon on the wall' as 'awake'."
"What verse is he on?"
"Eight million, seven hundred and forty-three thousand, nine hundred and eleven."
"Probably not, then."
Finally, Silverbolt turned around, casting about as if looking for something. Hot Spot watched him cross the room, pick up a couple of discarded cubes of energon, sniff them experimentally, and then fix Hot Spot with an expression he'd never seen on Silverbolt's face before. It was a look that said - although it would be a while before Hot Spot ran across either the idiom or the fauna in question - that they might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb.
"Mysterious powers, you say?"
"Apparently."
Silverbolt looked at the energon for a moment longer, then knocked half of one cube back in a single, impressive gulp. Hot Spot watched, optics wide, as Silverbolt advanced on him with what would have been scary determination if it weren't so damned sexy. He clambered onto the berth, ending up in Hot Spot's lap as he did so, and pushed the other cube into his unresisting hand.
"In that case," said Silverbolt with a hitch in his voice that Hot Spot really, really liked, "I think I want to know what I missed last night."
Hot Spot looked at the energon, figured it couldn't make the headache any worse, and raised it in toast.
"I'll drink to that."
Silverbolt's free hand had wandered to his wheel-wells, exploring in a way that made Hot Spot's engine stutter, and brought a faint, appreciative smile to Silverbolt's extremely kissable mouth.
"Hot Spot?" murmured Silverbolt. "Drink fast."
(end)
Author: Atalan (writing journal: brightwanderer)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: After-effects of inebriation, mention of drunk!sex.
Word count: 1776
Summary: Well, it's a learning experience...
Prompt: Hot Spot/Silverbolt: the morning after - "Oops. Sorry, Silverbolt."
Notes: Apologies for my general crapness over my prompts in the last week or so - a bunch of personal stuff jumped me, then I went away, now I have flu. Joys. I shall be working through my unwritten prompts as quickly as I can, hopefully the wait won't detract too much from the fics. :)
It wasn't the first time he'd woken up blurry and aching from overcharge - the Protectobots might've been new-sparked, but they'd taken to high-grade like - what was that human phrase? - like ducks to water - but it was the first time his groan of misery had been echoed by another vocaliser.
Hot Spot jolted upright and wished that he hadn't. The room spun impressively around him, and he offlined his optics, which didn't seem to help in the slightest, as fragments of memory jabbed into his pained processor.
"Silverbolt?" he said after a moment, wincing at the sound of his own voice.
Silverbolt (he was ninety percent sure it was Silverbolt - had to be a flyer, anyway, he could feel the wings) groaned again, and came out with a garbled, questioning noise that might possibly have meant something to someone less hungover than Hot Spot was right now. More memories were surfacing; he should've known better than to take Groove up on that drinking contest - mech might be smaller than him but he could hold his high-grade like he was subspacing it - and wherever the hell Air Raid had got the stuff from, it sure was potent. Then there'd been that stupid thing with the dares... Silverbolt had refrained from joining in, of course, and Hot Spot had tried to, but then Slingshot had said something - he couldn't remember what now - that had pissed him off enough to take him up on whatever idiot challenge had been in place at the time...
... in fact, he had a horrible, sinking feeling that said challenge might explain Silverbolt's presence in his berth. There had certainly been enough talk about interfacing. They were, after all, a group of ten young mechs just beginning to explore the world. It was only to be expected that the conversation would end up in the gutter after a couple of cubes and be last seen making a determined bid for the centre of the Earth by the point when no-one could see straight anymore.
"Hot Spot?"
Well, it was definitely Silverbolt. He couldn't quite decide if that was a good or bad thing. On the one hand, it'd be more embarrassing to have woken up with one of the other Aerials, since he didn't, y'know, actually find any of them half so attractive as Silverbolt. On the other hand, Silverbolt was, well, sensible, and rather private, and Hot Spot had a feeling that, once he woke up enough to think straight, things were going to get kind of awkward.
He didn't want awkwardness. Not with Silverbolt. He was way too good a friend. And going by what Hot Spot was remembering of last night, he was damned good in other ways, too.
"Yeah, 's me," he mumbled in response, finally bringing his optics online again and focusing them with difficulty on his companion. "I think... we may have failed to set a good example."
Silverbolt snorted in a way that might have been laughter or might have just been the fact that he was face down on the berth and didn't seem inclined to move. For all that he had to be feeling as terrible as Hot Spot, there was something languid and enticing about the way he was sprawled out there, wings twitching occasionally.
Unfortunately, just as Hot Spot was thinking that it might be worth trying to ignore the pounding in his cranial cavity and seeing if the nosecone on Silverbolt's back really was as sensitive as he remembered from last night, Silverbolt's processor seemed to boot up properly at last, causing him to sit bolt upright and glance around with startled optics.
"What--?" He squinted at Hot Spot with an endearingly severe frown. "Why am I in your berth?"
"Er." Hot Spot was too tired and pained to come up with anything other than the truth, or what he remembered of it. "I think they dared us. Or dared me. Or something."
He watched Silverbolt process that, frown giving way, for just a second, to a spark-piercing vulnerability that made Hot Spot want to wrap his arms around the jet and soothe him until it went away. Then Silverbolt's face closed off, and in a voice far too neutral for Hot Spot's comfort, he said, "I see."
"Whoa, wait, stop--" because Silverbolt was swinging his legs over the side of the berth and Hot Spot was too hungover to deal with this right now but he liked the idea of dealing with it later even less, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-- aw, man, my processor hasn't come right yet."
He leaned forward with all the grace and charm of a stunned Dinobot, and managed to hook his arms awkwardly about Silverbolt's middle and rest his chin on the jet's shoulder. Silverbolt stiffened up, but Hot Spot kept talking.
"I mean, I think there was a dare involved, but it wasn't, y'know, like that was all it... I mean, I like you, you like me - at least, I figure you like me, you haven't changed the code on your office door yet, anyhow - and it just kind of seemed like a good idea at the time."
The tension eased out of Silverbolt as Hot Spot rambled, though he twitched a shoulder pointedly to get him to stop leaning so heavily on his wings. Hot Spot would've heaved a sigh of relief if his vents hadn't been occupied trying to sort out his overheated and generally running below par systems. He even managed a weak grin against Silverbolt's shoulder.
"And, hey, it's not like it was bad or anything, right?"
Silverbolt hesitated, staring fixedly at the floor, and Hot Spot had a second's dreadful contemplation of just how bad his drunken attempts at interface might, in fact, have been, before Silverbolt reluctantly admitted, "To tell the truth, I, uh, don't actually remember much."
"Oh."
And while, on the one hand, that was better than the alternative Hot Spot had just been contemplating, on the other, it was kind of galling. It wasn't like Hot Spot himself recalled that much of the previous night's events, but he did remember how slagging hard he'd been trying to make Silverbolt feel good - and he sort of had a half-memory of some of the wonderful noises he'd been getting out of Silverbolt, and he'd figured he was at least making an impression. Not so much, apparently.
"Not that I'd know, anyway," muttered Silverbolt in a self-deprecating tone that Hot Spot could only attribute to the no doubt magnificent hangover now pounding its way through his processor. "Slingshot actually had the nerve to tell me I needed to 'get laid', in his words, the last time I had to discipline him." He paused, apparently stung afresh by Slingshot's taunt, and added, with uncharacteristic vehemence, "Little glitch."
"Well, hey, there you go, now you have."
Hot Spot wished he could blame the hangover for his vocaliser's apparent lack of connection to his higher functions, but the fact was that he had a tendency to insert foot firmly in mouth even when he wasn't contemplating pulling his own diodes out through his audio receptors to stop them throbbing.
He winced.
"I mean..."
"I should, probably, um, go."
Silverbolt shook himself free and stood up too quickly, swayed for a moment, then strode determinedly, stiffly, to the door. Hot Spot was still trying to cobble together some sort of sentence that was less than appallingly idiotic when Silverbolt hit the door controls and paused to let the door open fully.
And stayed paused. The door waited patiently, then, after some seconds, swished shut again with a happy beep. Silverbolt remained in place, optics on the now-closed door.
"Er... Silverbolt?"
"Hot Spot." Silverbolt's voice was calm, slightly distant, as though contemplating something far away. "Am I right in thinking that, at some point last night, we came in here and... left them to it?"
A prickle of apprehension ran through Hot Spot's sensor network as a quick scramble through his memory banks confirmed that this was, in fact, the case. Horrible possibilities swam before his aching optics.
"Yeah. Yeah, we did."
"I suppose that goes some of the way towards explaining why Fireflight is now painted a particularly horrible shade of green," said Silverbolt, still in that calm, distant voice. "It may even account for the fact that half of our number seem to be wearing parts of each other's armour, although I'm not quite sure how they've managed to attach Air Raid's wings to Streetwise's aft. What I am having difficulty with," and here his tone finally wavered, into what Hot Spot fervently hoped wasn't oncoming hysteria, "is understanding how Slingshot and Blades appear to have welded each other to the ceiling."
"High-grade possesses mysterious powers unknown to mortal mechs?" offered Hot Spot, wondering if it also possessed the power to somehow make things unhappen. "Are any of them awake yet?"
"Not unless you count Groove staring into space and working his way through 'nine million cubes of energon on the wall' as 'awake'."
"What verse is he on?"
"Eight million, seven hundred and forty-three thousand, nine hundred and eleven."
"Probably not, then."
Finally, Silverbolt turned around, casting about as if looking for something. Hot Spot watched him cross the room, pick up a couple of discarded cubes of energon, sniff them experimentally, and then fix Hot Spot with an expression he'd never seen on Silverbolt's face before. It was a look that said - although it would be a while before Hot Spot ran across either the idiom or the fauna in question - that they might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb.
"Mysterious powers, you say?"
"Apparently."
Silverbolt looked at the energon for a moment longer, then knocked half of one cube back in a single, impressive gulp. Hot Spot watched, optics wide, as Silverbolt advanced on him with what would have been scary determination if it weren't so damned sexy. He clambered onto the berth, ending up in Hot Spot's lap as he did so, and pushed the other cube into his unresisting hand.
"In that case," said Silverbolt with a hitch in his voice that Hot Spot really, really liked, "I think I want to know what I missed last night."
Hot Spot looked at the energon, figured it couldn't make the headache any worse, and raised it in toast.
"I'll drink to that."
Silverbolt's free hand had wandered to his wheel-wells, exploring in a way that made Hot Spot's engine stutter, and brought a faint, appreciative smile to Silverbolt's extremely kissable mouth.
"Hot Spot?" murmured Silverbolt. "Drink fast."
(end)