thisavrou_log

OTA

Who: Soundwave and you!
When: The 21st through the end of May, pretty much.
Where: Around the Moria.
What: "Taking stalk", AKA robo-sulking. Feel free to find him anywhere he might fit in his armored car mode.
Warnings: Ehh none currently, will add as needed.

Given the turns his life had taken lately, Soundwave supposed being stuck on a small ship where he hated his job and almost everyone else around him was par for the course. Years of being Decepticon high command and literally conquering worlds to struggling to stuff tiny packages for organics into mailboxes without mangling them. Or on other days, cleaning up after said organics. All while surrounded by a bunch of Autobots, Megatron, murder happy organics, and Tarn. Who may have single handedly restarted the war if Riptide’s screams the other day were anything to go by. Maybe he should have checked into what happened more thoroughly, but honestly? He was tired. Of a lot of things. And he didn’t need to know the details.

If he hadn’t felt comfortable sleeping in what passed for a room occupied by Autobots before, he certainly wasn’t going to do it now. Instead he kept to his schedule of finding various deserted areas in the ship, transforming into an armored car, and sleeping like that. Some days he was in the cargo bay - now as far away from the Rodpod as physically possible - other days it was the garden, and sometimes it was in the middle of one of the larger empty hallways. Never the observation deck though. The view was nice but the noise was unbearable. Really, the noise throughout the whole ship was starting to grate on Soundwave’s nerves. He was starting to really miss Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Rumble, and Frenzy’s incessant chatter. Even if their conversation topics were optic roll worthy, they had been something grounding for him to listen to.

Here he was alone.

Well, he did have the odd - what did humans call them? - plush version of Laserbeak that had just shown up in the cargo bay the other night. Though since it didn’t do much apart from sit there, it hardly counted as company. Soundwave had nearly tossed it out one of the airlocks when he first got it, but now it was taking up the driver’s side seat of his alt mode.

No matter. He’d been through worse before. He would just wait. Today he’d wait in the cargo bay, tomorrow in a hallway, the next in the gardens. If the captains wanted to get the organics home within their lifespan, it wouldn’t take that long to get home.

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Gregor will occasionally walk in the garden to clear his head or spend time with Fat Ninny. He's seen some odd things while wandering but the huge armored vehicle is relatively new. He approaches it with a healthy amount of caution, peering briefly through a window and lifting a hand to reach for one of the door handles before it occurs to him that it's possible this is also a person and he drops his arm before making contact.

"Ah," he says, taking a careful step back. "Pardon me." He hopes this is another Cybertronian, at any rate, and he's not standing around attempting to make polite conversation with somebody's car.

He might have been sleeping, but as soon as someone was approaching, he stirred. Millions of years at war made it all but impossible to sleep through even the fairly soft footsteps of a human. He debated transforming as Gregor got closer and nearly touched him. The last thing he wanted was some organic crawling in him. But then - nothing. Hm.

"It is appreciated," Soundwave says in his usual monotone. He doesn't transform, considering how close Gregor still is, but he does visibly shift some.

Gregor takes another prudent step and a half clear of Soundwave in case he does want to transform, then stops, lest it turn into a full-fledged retreat.

"I apologize if I disturbed you," he says, turning a hand palm-out. "Having Cybertronians on board is still taking some getting used to, I'm afraid."

How polite. He will transform back, mostly so he can step on the organic if he proves to be hostile. Running them over got so much goo everywhere...

Though if Gregor didn't get handsy with his doors, he doubted he would be so foolish. But you could never be too careful.

"I could say the same of having so many organics aboard a ship. As such, there is no need to apologize."

"Do you not have much contact with organics, usually?" Gregor asks, before his eyes narrow slightly.

"No one has been giving you trouble, I trust?" He pauses, then backtracks slightly. "My name is Greg--I'm actually one of the Arbitration Officers on the ship, so if you are having difficulty with anyone, I'm actually the person to tell. I know Cybertronians are... quite different from what most of us are used to, and I think some of us may be better at adjusting than others, to put it in the mildest possible terms."

"I had formed an alliance with the Earthlings previously, they were just less underfoot in an environment large enough to house Cybertronians properly." He would gladly replace the Moria with his own ship. Humans may have sounded like 'talking chipmunks' on it, whatever that meant, but at least it had a movie theater.

It was almost amusing to be asked if anyone was giving him trouble by an organic of all things. If he told him his roommates weren't exactly the most welcoming, it wasn't like he could actually do anything about it. Or the fact that things would likely get worse now that Tarn had killed Riptide. "No, I have not had any trouble thus far," His concerns were his own and not something he was going to share with someone he hardly knew, especially a human, "But I will keep that in mind. We have had... poor relations with organic species in the past."

"Yes, well." Gregor's voice goes bone dry. "That's one way to phrase it. At least the systemic genocide has appeared to roll to a comfortable halt, lately."

He tilts his head in a nod at Soundwave, looking unoffended. "I happened to collect a few texts of Cybertronian origin in the ship's post that were... illuminating, to say the least," he says, by way of explanation. "It's given me some context, in any case."

Ah, so he knew a little Cybertronian history. He supposes he shouldn't be too shocked - the Autobots were all rather chatty, weren't they? And if he got texts in the mail... But the nice thing about having a covered face and a very monotone voice was that even if he was surprised, it didn't show at all.

"Fortunately it has. While our relations with our organic neighbors were hardly peaceful even before our war expanded off of Cybertron, we did not help matters."

"Mmmm. Politics that complex and longstanding would be a fascinating study even if we weren't stuck in close quarters, such as it is. Though, I have the distinct impression that only having a copy of Towards Peace to read has given me a slightly skewed version of events."

Gregor isn't quite sure why this particular Cybertronian is tolerating him asking a bunch of questions, but he'll press whatever advantage he has until he's told to shove off.

"I'm going to hazard to guess that it's rude to ask whether someone is an Autobot or a Decepticon, despite the difference being purely academic, as far as I'm concerned."

Tailgate was in the cargo bay that day because, occasionally, he had a job he needed to do. Somehow though, he didn't really feel inclined to do it now that Megatron didn't work down here anymore. It was so much easier to slack off without the Lost Light captain breathing down your neck.

So there he was, carrying crates too and fro when he spots an armoured car sitting behind some of the larger crates. Obviously a Cybertronian, he thinks, and the colour scheme looks somewhat familiar. What was he doing there? Surely he had his own room to go sleep in. It never took much to convince Tailgate to stop working, so his job was promptly abandoned and he went over to say hi to his new friend.

"Hi! What are you doing down here?" It occurred to him that he had been meaning to talk to Soundwave anyway, to show off his new shiny badge. Maybe, hopefully, he'd appreciate it more than Rodimus did?

Tailgate you will never get far in the Decepticons if you slack off so much.

Soundwave turned as Tailgate approached, staying in his alt mode for the moment. That certainly was a new purple badge on the tiny bot... It was hard not to be curious about it, given everything about Tailgate screamed 'overly friendly Autobot'. Especially how chatty he was. No matter. It wasn't an unwelcome distraction.

"I had planned on recharging for a while," He explained, "The room I was assigned to is... not to my tastes."

"Oh, yeah, you're supposed to stay with Rodimus, Riptide, and Sideswipe, aren't you?" He, very faintly, remembered someone complaining about that some time ago. Was it Rodimus? Or Riptide? Oh well, he couldn't remember. "Sorry about the wall I guess, that was pretty much my fault. I was trying to build something and it exploded. Strange it hasn't been fixed yet."

Despite Soundwave's obvious indication that he wanted to be alone, Tailgate was more than keen to stick around and keep chatting. After Cyclonus, Tailgate was very used to holding up every side of a conversation.

"Why don't you just room with Megatron? I think he has a room all by himself ever since Ultra Magnus left. I think he might be lonely. I mean, I sure would be."

"Yes, we were assigned to the same room." He'd rather have a room to himself, but if that couldn't happen, he would at least wish for people who hated him on principle just a little less. Not that it wasn't expected. And at this point, he wasn't sure who he would trust living with to apart from his cassettes. At Tailgate's next words, he gives the tiny bot a skeptical look. Or as skeptical as a car can look anyways. "It doesn't seem strange at all, actually." Given how gladly Tailgate dropped his work to come talk to him, he's not surprised the hole never got fixed.

Soundwave bristles noticeably at the mention of rooming with Megatron and huffs. "I am perfectly fine here," He really did try not to let too much irritation leak into his voice, "Regardless, if Megatron desired company, it would not be mine." That had been made abundantly clear when he was left behind, like all the other Decepticons. And again when Megatron couldn't be bothered to contact him here unless it involved Tarn getting into trouble.

Which has nothing to do with Soundwave being a passive aggressive aft. Nothing at all.

The more Tailgate talked to Soundwave, the more he picked up on the bitter salt that made up the Decepticon's being. The more he looked at it, the more intensely curious he became. Did Soundwave and Megatron have an intensely bad breakup? It probably had something to do with Megatron's betrayal (as Tarn put it). On the one hand, it wasn't any of Tailgate's business. On the other, he was a very nosy person and everyone's business was his business.

"Oh... well if you say so." He would have to grill Megatron about it later. "You could always share my room! My only roommate is Cyclonus, and he won't bother anyone. He can be a bit scary sometimes, but you don't seem like the kind of person who gets scared, so I think you'll be fine."

Well, if Tailgate didn't bring up a bunch of people Soundwave hated all the time, maybe he would sound a little less bitter. At least a little. Really he was in a place in his life where everything was going to hell and nothing seemed to make it better and the majority of the people around him were terrible and untrustworthy. It was hard not to get a little bitter about everything.

But Tailgate should absolutely ask Megatron about it to make his life as awkward as possible.

"Cyclonus?" He would have thought someone like Tailgate would drive someone like Cyclonus nuts, but then he did make a point of mentioning how important the Autobot crew of the Lost Light was to him... "I spoke with Cyclonus briefly after I arrived. He seems reasonable enough." Soundwave wasn't the type to get scared, but he also wasn't sure he could be in a room with Tailgate for an extended time and stay sane, "Your offer is very kind, I will consider it."

"Well, us Decepticons need to stick together, right?"

Tailgate is still not entirely sure about this whole thing, but that definitely won't stop him from trying wedge his way into Soundwave's business. He already considers Soundwave a friend through the fact that they exist in the same general area together. It's how he befriended Cyclonus, and that worked like a charm.

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