shatterverse | (no subject)

So, Thrust thinks, this is a farm. Well, it's flat.

It's actually not impossible to keep a low profile if you're a big pink robot motorcycle, it's just tricky. It's particularly difficult when you're working on getting your refuelling station set up semi-permanently (Oliver had helped him move it somewhere out of the way, but Thrust is doing fiddly work, now, that he wouldn't trust to anyone else) and reliably running the way you want it to.

Really, being somewhere out of the way on the Cooper farm (at least Thrust hopes it's still the Cooper farm; he doesn't know where the territory ends) is only a marginal help. He is, after all, seven or eight feet of brightly-colored robot fiddling with a machine made out of part of a light pole with four rather small solar power panels, a pressure cooker, a toaster oven, and many other less recognizable small appliances securely welded to it. Further welded sections of light pole make up a sturdy square base. There are symbols carefully painted onto the pressure cooker-- one is pretty self-explanatory, even without the dialogue, but the other is a little more unusual. (Hey, it's technically a Vehicon refuelling station, even if it's a refuelling station in the same way a vending machine is a restaurant.)

Thrust fiddles with tubing and wiring and connections, now and then tossing a manipulatory-appendage full of organic matter (mostly grass, although with the occasional dirt clod) into the pressure cooker, then peering at the toaster oven before continuing to make adjustments.

He really wants just a vending machine, see, not a still.

The whole thing might look a little bit odd, to a passing human.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Thrust chuckles-- "A digestive tract isn't the same as a conversion tank. Don't worry, I ain't jealous of you. I get the point now, though. Makes the stuff more palatable or easier to eat, right?"

"Yup. I'm planning on having a pizza night soon," she says, grinning. "Should I look out for some special fuel for you too?"

"... Thanks, really," because if that's flat out an honest offer, it's probably the actual nicest offer he's gotten without an ulterior motive or a well, it's not like there's anything better to do motive behind it, "But energon's kind of all I'm equipped to take.

"Might turn up anyway, if you're invitin'."

"I'm totally inviting," Steph promises cheerfully. "I am now, anyway. I'll make it tomorrow."

Make it tomorrow... ?

"Your party?" Hey, just trying to be clear. "And thanks."

"I don't think you can really call it a party if I'm just making pizza," Steph says thoughtfully, "but I could totally try to scrounge up some balloons. And paint silly faces on them. The babies'd love it."

Has anybody ever told Steph she'd make a great morale officer?

"... What else do you need for a human-style party?" Thrust asks. "Maybe I can make myself useful."

For a given value of useful. Meanwhile, he pulls a very small energon cube out of the toaster oven-- it glows, even in sunlight, patterns shimmering in a pale, almost white purple.

If the look Thrust gives it is frustrated, it's because that's still not quite what he's looking for-- hard cider when he wants apple juice, even if it's a lot better than the applejack he was getting before.

Once.

That didn't happen to this Steph though, 's OK.

"Alcohol," she says thoughtfully, and then shakes her head. "Nah, I don't want to get people all mopey about the worlds we've lost. Fizzy drinks, though, totally. And candy. And music."

Steph can has a PROJECT!

"I'll get Angelo to find me that boombox, it'll be awesome!"

"You know, you'd make one fraggin' good morale officer," Thrust tells her, chuckling.

There, now this one has heard it, too, if under slightly more preferable circumstances. Because she's talking to the Vehicon infiltration forces (okay, okay, and also air strike and ground assault forces) general, here. He'd know. The closest they had was Jetstorm, and 'class clown' does not necessarily equal 'morale officer.'

"Only thing I can think of is lights, but holos were all over the place back home." He'd offer use of the van, but it's probably not clean enough to handle food-hauling, having handled horse-hauling for fifteen hundred miles. Thrust can't smell it, no, but he has picked up that humans need clean food. "Or... I dunno, banners?"

Steph beams. "Yes! Lights, definitely. I totally saw cellophane in the newsagent in town, I'll rig that up over the lights, it'll be sweet! And I'll paint banners. This is going to be the best party ever!"

She totally approves of being told things like that. It makes her determined to live up to it and really make it a good party.

"You need a hand haulin' or hangin' anything, let me know," Thrust offers, totally before he knows whether or not he can actually fit inside the house.

She nods excitedly. "I totally will. Thanks! This is gonna be great --- I'm gonna get started!"

"You have fun." This could translate to sweet mother of microchips, I have never actually met anyone actively bubbly before, or he could actually mean it. ... Possibly both.

Steph would resent that.

If it wasn't so true.

She cartwheels towards her bike, beaming, and waves goodbye before rocketing off Smallvillewards.

... poor Smallville.

"Frag, if she were even technorganic, she'd be real cute," Thrust mutters, chuckling, and goes back to his adjustments.

Smallville won't know what hit it.