robothell | [OPEN] Staying Out Of Trouble

Entry tags:

mayday | scaredybot

[OPEN] Staying Out Of Trouble

Who: Mayday and You
Where: Around the city
When: After people have been around for a bit
What: Scavenging, housekeeping, trying to avoid robot drama
Warnings: Excessive cleanliness

The first thing Mayday does after settling into this strange new place is set up house. Actually, that's a lie. The first thing he tries to do is build himself a working spacecraft, but that doesn't exactly pan out. He does find a spacecraft. It's some sort of one-to-two person starhopper affair, and it's thoroughly lodged into the side of a building. The propulsion system is less 'in need of repair' and more 'completely disintegrated' and the engines aren't in much better shape, but it's a ship! And even a nonfunctional ship makes Mayday feel better than no ship at all.

So he cleans it out and shores it up, and then sees to the most important necessities of a living space: working cleaning facilities. Sweet, sweet cleaning facilities. Then he sees to the rest of it.

[A - Out and about]
He's nervous every time he leaves his ship. He knows that logically being inside his makeshift home isn't any safer than being out and about in the city, but it sure feels that way! Plus, at least the inside of his ship is clean. Ugh, he already has a few smears of dirt on his otherwise spotless plating - he's not polished to a shine, however. He was always more of a matte kind of guy, and also shiny seems more likely to attract unwanted attention.

Stopping by a building that looks fairly structurally stable, he enters, quickly scavenges about for any parts that might be of use, and then takes them out to add to the growing pile on his makeshift sled. The pile won't get particularly large before he heads back. He's not very strong for an Autobot. In fact, he is basically the opposite of strong. He is weak as hell.

He'll donate any particularly important finds to the clinic. As much as he hates being near it - injured bots give him the shakes - he understands how much more important it is than his own home building project.

Sighing, he picks up the lead to his sled and continues his trudge through the city.

[B - Coming home]

His place has really come a long way since he started. It's structurally sound, the lights work most of the time, and he's even installed a makeshift elevator so he doesn't have to crawl through the filthy building it's embedded in to get up to it!

Approaching his home, Mayday summons the elevator with the controller he carries with him, and with all the speed of a glacier in summer, it slowly lowers towards him. It's not a very good elevator. It's basically a rusted bucket that he welded together from scrap suspended from a cable, but it serves its purpose. He begins to load today's finds into it.

His other additions to the area are defenses. They aren't very good defenses, either. Actually, they're just tripwires that would drop containers full of dust and rocks on anybody that activated them. So sue him, he's a spaceship engineer not a weapon designer!

Still, better a slight distraction and a lot of noise if someone - or something - dangerous comes snooping around than no notice at all.

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Pipes, in his lifelong streak of shitty luck, just so happened to walk right over one of those tripwires while investigating the noise of the elevator. Luckily, he realises that the snapping noise after activating one of them wasn't a normal noise (at least, not one he'd heard after weeks of exploring) and manages to just about avoid being flattened by the bigger rocks. Just about - he gets covered in dust and several of the smaller rocks do hit him in the back and shoulder, sending him sprawling out on his stomach.

He lays there for a while, in a daze and wondering how that happened before eventually stating flatly, "Ow."

Edited (WINGING THE TRAP DESCRIPTION tell me if i got it wrong :|b) 2015-03-04 13:54 (UTC)

Honestly, even the bigger rocks aren't overly large. The magic of pulleys can only do so much when you basically have the strength of a petro-rabbit.

Still, they probably would have hurt. They certainly make enough noise.

"Ahh!" Mayday shrieks in surprise at the racket, turning from loading his elevator to stare at his sprung trap.

"Aah?" he squeaks out as he realizes that the thing that set off the trap appears to be neither a ravenous beast of mysterious origin or a huge scary Deception.

"Ah!" he adds finally, rushing over to help the dazed fellow up. "I'm so sorry I would have put signs up only then it wouldn't have worked as a trap but it was only meant for bad guys-!"

Curse you undiscerning low tech solutions!

He appreciates the help up, really he does. Pipes leans heavily on the other bot with one arm while dusting himself off with the other. Just a few dents and a small crack - he can get those seen to easily. Nothing urgent.

"Whuzzat?" Give him a moment, his head is swimming a bit.

...

...

...Okay, there we go. His visor goes from dim to a brighter red as his optics refocus. "S'okay. Rocks can't tell the difference."

Mayday does his best not to make too many sad, distressed noises as Pipes leans on him. He's so dirty. Most of that dirt is his trap's fault, but still. Dirty!

Absently he takes out a cleaning cloth and wipes down Pipes's visor and faceplate. The color of that visor makes him a bit nervous - faction is pretty distinctly color-coded in his home universe, but he knows other universes are less strict about that.

"You are definitely 100% an Autobot, right?" He swipes the cloth over the top of Pipes's head. He can't help it, his response to being nervous is to clean things.

While finding it a bit strange, he stays still and allows Mayday to do his thing. He waits until the other bot is done before saying anything else.

"Thanks. Don't think I could've got all that myself... and, yeah. I am. Even spoke to Optimus Prime himself!" That's a big thing, for Pipes.

"Why'd you ask?" A beat. "Uh, I'm Pipes by the way. Sorry for ruining your trap set-up."

Mayday pauses in the middle of wiping down one of Pipes's shoulders when he remembers that cleaning people without their permission is both rude and weird. He shifts to cleaning his own hands with an awkward, "A-heh."

He nods along with Pipes. His first thought on hearing 'Optimus Prime' is 'What, the guy with the Axe and the lips?' Then he remembers that Primes tend to be a bigger thing on other Cybertrons. Meeting a Prime, good stuff.

"I'm, uh, I'm Mayday. Just making sure you probably won't murder me. I'm allergic. To, um, murder. Being murdered. Yes."

Wow, that was just a terrible attempt at a joke.

Lame joke it may be, Pipes laughs regardless.

"Me too!" Funny, considering Overlord. "I don't have any intentions of causing a reaction, or anything." He holds his hands up to around shoulder height. "Honest."

After a moment or two he lowers his hands again and tilts his head.

"How long have you been here? You've got a pretty nice set up."

Mayday stares at Pipes, mouth gaping open slightly. He laughed at his joke! And then ran with it! He gives the other 'Bot a genuine smile. It is small and delicate like a rare butterfly (if there was actually a butterfly on Mayday's face he'd run screaming and flailing).

"Haha!" he says, rubbing the back of his head. "Same to you. Killing people is, um. Yeah. I don't do that."

Except that one time he almost got a Rodimus killed. But he'd rather not think about that.

"I've been here, uh..." He counts on his fingers, trying to remember. He's been kind of distracted. "Ssssseveral weeks? I've been, ah, y'know. Keeping busy."

Pipes can see an awkward subject when it crops up, and to be honest doesn't really find battles that happened during the war (the few he was even part of) a good conversation topic. He seizes the opportunity to change the topic gladly.

"Yeah, I woke up in that huge crater and spent the last few weeks exploring. I take it you know about the few set-ups in the city? The clinic and such?"

Just in case, he'd rather Mayday have isolated himself through choice, rather than not knowing he had other Autobots around.

Ah yes, battles and war. Mayday was never part of any of those until he got dragged into universe-hopping shenanigans. He is very much a civilian weenie.

"Yeah, that's about the same for me..." He gives an involuntary cringe at the mention of the clinic. "Yes, I- I know about... That place."

It's full of injured people. Injured people are terrifying.

"Ah! Just making sure." He then adds on quickly; "Not that there's anything wrong with staying out here!" The last thing Pipes wants to do is make this lil jittery guy feel bad.

"I think a few of the other mechs are working on getting Maccadam's reopened. Or remade, I guess. This isn't Iacon..."

He may be implying he wants to take you out for totally platonic-bro-drinks at some point.

"Not that there's anything wrong with the clinic!" Mayday assures right back, not wanting to sound like a huge jerk about something people put a lot of work into. "I just kind of... Like having my own space. That's clean. And I also kind of sort of maybe have a little tiny really huge fear of hospitals."

He cycles his optics slowly at the mention of Maccadam's. That sounds... Familiar. "That's a... That's a bar, right?"

That sounds like a more agreeable place to socialize than a medical clinic.

He just waves a hand nonchalantly. "It's okay, I can understand being scared of medibays. I've been in them a few times myself and it's no picnic."

Pipes is glad Mayday at least recognises the bar name.

"It is! Can't go too long without a social gathering spot, right? Might help cheer the atmosphere of the planet up."

Wow, who is this guy. He's so nice and understanding. Mayday could almost hug him if he wasn't still kind of dirty.

"Y-yeah," Mayday says, smiling at Pipes. "That's sounds mice. This place is kind of..." He flails a hand around, looking for the word. "Dead."

He's silent for a moment before blurting out, "Do you want to wash up in my ship?"

Friends let friends use their showers, right? Sweet Allspark he wants a friend here, he's so lonely.

"I mean. Since it's my fault. That you're all." He waves his hands again. "Dusty."

The offer surprises Pipes, both because this guy has working water in his set up already and the offer in itself. It's a bit weird, bro, but he won't point that out.

"I should probably wipe the dirt off my optics, yeah."

And clean the dirt out that small crack. A pause, while he looks around.

"So, ah, you have a ship?"

In Mayday's perfect world offering people washing facilities wouldn't just be polite, it would be expected. Unfortunately nobody seems to understand the full importance of cleanliness like he does.

"Yes! Well, no. But sort of? It's..." He points up along the cable of his elevator. Several storeys up, the remnants of the ship jut proudly out of the side of the nearby building. "It doesn't fly anymore."

That's unfortunate, seeing as Pipes probably enjoys rolling in mud.

Ah, up. "It's pretty impressive, regardless. I don't think anyone else has found a ship yet."

Wow, clearly they can't be friends. No, that's a lie, they can totally be friends. As long as Pipes can deal with Mayday whining sadly at him until he lets him spray him with a hose.

Mayday sighs longsufferingly. "It's the closest thing I've found to a working ship and it doesn't. Work, I mean. As a ship. It works pretty well as an apartment."

Scratching his head awkwardly for a moment, he remembers what they were doing and gestures towards the makeshift elevator. "Um, after you?"

He goes, as gestured.

"I'm sure there's others around. I mean, the fact you found one even if it doesn't work is pretty neat. Did you work as an engineer before?"

Climbing into the elevator bucket, Mayday hesitates for a moment before unloading the parts he'd put into it before Pipes arrived. He doesn't entirely trust it to carry both of them and supplies.

Once everyone is settled, he presses his control and the elevator begins its slow, creaky trip up to Mayday's ~~secret clubhouse~~ ship.

"Maybe all the working space craft were taken when they abandoned the city." He ducks his head a bit. "I'm a spaceship engineer, yeah. I mean, I used to just be a mechanic and constructor, but then I sort of taught myself how to design them, too, and... Yeah."

He adds after a moment. "Also I'm a pilot?" Spaceships.

"That makes sense, yeah."

If Pipes had eyebrows, consider them raised. Actually, he lifts his visor up with a finger, achieving the same effect.

"You can-- wow. There's teaching yourself how to tinker with stuff then there's designing entire spaceships!"

Consider him suitably impressed.

Wow! Colour him flustered! "I, um, well, I mean, not like... Not like entire ships, I mean, I don't have the theoretical background to design, like, engines, and I mean... I mean I'm not really a programmer or anything! But I can, I mean, I can take the parts other people designed and put them together. In a whole. Whole ship. Yeah."

Mayday twiddles his fingers furiously, trying to keep the grin spreading across his face from looking too dopey. Oh gosh, praise, he can't handle this.

"Um! Welcome to my ship!" He sweeps an arm around as the elevator rises through a hole in the ship's belly. It's rather dark at the moment, but even in the gloom it's clear that the place is impeccably clean.

"Oh for- the lights went out again." How embarrassing.

"That's even better! I can't imagine how creative you'd have to be to do that properly!"

Woah there Mayday, you might have a fan. He glances around, still impressed despite the lack of light. He then switches on his own headlights, completely unfazed by the darkness.

"Faulty wiring, huh?"

Edited 2015-03-06 21:14 (UTC)

"I- um- oh-!" Mayday sputters out a few nonsense syllables, then grabs on to the first distraction with both hands. Metaphorically. "NO NO IT'S JUST THE POWER SOURCE IS A BIT FINICKY SOME TIMES IT JUST NEEDS A LITTLE TLC I'LL GO DO THAT AND BE RIGHT BACK."

Finished with his overly-loud run-on sentence, he practically tosses himself through a nearby doorway. Loud banging noises commence shortly afterwards as he begins some percussive maintenance.

The lights flicker on shortly after.

It's not a large ship, especially since the majority of the cockpit is a crumpled mess full of - now extremely well-organized and cleaned - debris from the building it crashed into. Given that both Pipes and Mayday run toward the smaller end of the Cybertronian height spectrum, however, it's actually fairly roomy. Most of the ship is a single open space connecting that includes the cockpit area and cargo space. There's only two separate rooms near the back of the ship.

Gosh, that was an odd reaction. Oh, well. Pipes assumes Mayday just really wants the lights back on. He seems like the type who likes to get chores done sooner rather than later. He doesn't mind waiting.

"Wow. You went all out! Any plans for decorating it?"

Some people just can't handle compliments. But Mayday seems calmer when he wanders back out of the utility room, wiping his hands cleaner with a new cloth.

"Decorating?" He looks around the ship's interior, as if the thought of decorating it hadn't occurred to him before. "Um, I guess not? I mean, I could paint it white, maybe... If I had paint."

Blinding white, so that no speck of dirt might escape his gaze. Ever.

"White works. I'm sure there's paint around here, somewhere."

It IS a city, after all. Then again, it's also war torn. Man, there could be anything around.

Mayday takes his moment to contemplate his perfectly white dream ship, rubbing his chin and nodding. Then he remembers why they're up here.

Snapping his fingers, he says, "Oh, right! Uh, the wash room is through the door on left, just through the room with the recharge slab... I could show you what's what but I think it's pretty... straight-forward..."

He lowers his gaze, poking his index fingers together. It's never a good idea to try and clean yourself in the same room as Mayday. He gets barely controllable urges to do it for them.

"Got it. Thanks again!"

Wow Mayday way to get hot and steamy around other mechs. Because of the hot and steamy water. Ha.

Pipes wanders off, probably not taking as long to 'clean up' as he should but whatever.

Pipes. Pipes, no. You make Mayday's fingers itch when you don't clean up enough. He has enough social grace now that he doesn't tell him to turn right back around and not come out until he's spotless.

He does make a little noise when Pipes comes back, however, raising a finger. "Um, you have a... there's a little... smudge..."

Giving a little cough, he crosses his arms. "N-nevermind."

"I got everything out my optics!"

Naive baby he is, Pipes still hasn't picked up on the cleanliness obsession.

"That's- that's good." There's another cloth in his hand. His fingers are twitching with the urge to wipe away the smudge. It's so... smudgy.

"So... yeah! This is. This is my place."

He really didn't think beyond getting Pipes into his shower. What does he do now.

"It's nice!"

Not to worry, Pipes has a plan.

"Right, now I'm sorted, do you want to fix that trap back up?"

"Oh! That's, um- that's actually a really good idea. Because it's tripped now. So it wouldn't work as a trap if anybody showed up. Like. Right now."

Suddenly looking horrified, Mayday runs over to the elevator to peer through the small gap between the bucket and the edge of its hole. No sign of anything horrible getting ready to blast his hideaway open. He breathes a sigh of relief.

Looking back at Pipes, he says, "And, uh, I can show you where the other ones are? Y'know. In case you ever needed to come back. If you wanted to. At some point. Maybe. For some reason."

Please come back, he is so lonely without his BFF-from-another-universe, and he's way too awkward to just approach other people in the city and try and befriend them.

"That sounds like a good idea. I have horrible luck; I'd probably trip them again."

Of course he'd come back, silly!!

Mayday gives an awkward laugh, still kind of embarrassed about getting an Autobot with one of his traps. "W-well, if you ever do, you know where to get washed up again!"

He hops back onto the elevator bucket, making it sway gently. "All aboard!"

"Absolutely. I'll try not to get caught in one at some silly time in the morning."

He follows suit, again, leaning against the far 'wall' of the elevator.

"Maybe you could set up motion detectors."

The elevator begins its slow trek back down to the ground.

"Oh, I'd absolutely love motion detectors!" Mayday says enthusiastically. If there's one thing he enjoys - besides cleaning - it's talkin' shop. "But so far I haven't been able to find any, and I don't know enough about them to build some from scratch.

He cocks his hips to the side, gripping one of his elbows with one hand and rubbing his chin with the other. "The ship should definitely have some sort of external sensors, but most of the computers were completely scrapped in the crash. So I guess I'd have to strip down the walls and see if I locate the sensors then-"

He will honestly keep rambling like this with progressively more technical details for hours unless somebody stops him.

Hey, Pipes was maintenance once. He can follow a good chunk of it. However he also knows his skills would only be able help so far and Mayday seems capable of doing it alone.

He does have one thing to offer, though.

"You know, when I was exploring last week I found those tray things for organising tools."

THUMBS UP

Mayday goes immediately silent. Then he's darting forward and actually grabbing Pipes by the shoulders in his excitement.

"You have an organizer?!" He quickly takes his hands back and twiddles his fingers, not wanting to seem rude. Ruder. Whoops. "Um. I mean. Could I- Are you- I mean... are you using it?"

He wants it. He wants the organizer.

"I think I could part with it. I'll bring it by next time I visit, yeah?"

ITS HAPPENING U MADE FRIEND

Mayday actually squeals and bounces in excitement, both at the prospect of getting an organizer and the fact that Pipes said he'd visit again. Then he promptly pinwheels his arms wildly as he almost topples out of the bucket.

Right. No bouncing in the rickety elevator. Not that he would have far to fall, they're almost at ground level.

Steadying himself, he calls out, "I'm okay!"

Mayday, you're adorable. Pipes manages to grab him just after he flails. Affirmation of his well-being only makes the minibot snort in laughter.

"Just about! I'll make sure to clean them before giving them over, yeah? Gesture of goodwill."

Mayday's eyes are practically sparkling as Pipes offers to even clean them. "Th-thank you!"

Wow! How can one person be this nice? Gosh, he totally doesn't deserve someone being this nice to him. However, he's selfish so he's totally going to take it.

"If you, um, if you ever need something. I can maybe- I can maybe do it for you?"

"Deal."

He holds his hand out for a DEAL MAKING SHAKE

Mayday's handshake is about as strong as a newborn kitten, but he actually grips Pipes's hand and that's not something he's always been able to do!

"Deal!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[OPEN] Staying Out Of Trouble

b!!!

That works! XD

GOOD what a cute oc

Haha aw thanks! He's a giant weenie

so is pipes! what a match

Double dweeb powers activate!

FUUUUUUUUUUUUSIOOOON

HA (gosh Pipes is so precious)

AW thank

:3c

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Did we wanna wrap up or go through the motions of trap-resetting, haha

i think wrap up :|b

LET IT WRAP THEN