#this is a good ship and I will throw hands with blackarachnia personally

[thatboxylady]

haha my hand slipped oops

consider this sort of a teaser for the big Beast Machines fic that I am publishing later this year (or early next year). don’t worry about it. it’s fine. yeah. everything is f  ine.........

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“Rain”

In the years following Megatron’s takeover of Cybertron, pollution from the mass production of Vehicons had choked the life out its atmosphere— far more than what was to be expected for a planet that was just a hunk of metal.

When the sun did manage to come through the clouds, it was always in a haze that clogged your intakes. Cleaning your vents was mandatory maintenance if you wanted to avoid accidently cooking your internals on a hot night. Visibility was throttled through the smog on the best days, thick like smoke on the worst. It was amazing that the organic-half of the Maximals managed to survive as long as they had… maybe the whole techno-organic spiel that Primal constantly spat wasn’t so organic after all. The few humans that managed to survive the initial siege were dead by the end of the first year of Megatron’s not-so-little uprising— suffocated by the air they had tried so hard to improve when the Pax Cybertronia was first passed. If they were lucky, the Maximals would go the same way. Eventually. Hopefully.

But the rain. The rain. Not quite concentrated to the point where it was pure acid, but that slag was awful if you let it stick to you for too long. It seared white streaks on Cybertropolis’ skyscrapers where it chewed away paint and eroded just about everything else that wasn’t glass or metal. Jetstorm’s wings always tingled in the worst ways after the sky decided to start spitting. The sensation stayed for days after even after a good chemical wash if he wasn’t careful.

So how the frag Thrust could tolerate it was a mystery. Acid ate through rubber way faster than it tore through anything else on Cybertron, and the cycle-general had been driving laps for the better part of the hour on exposed tires. 

In a torrential downpour.

Like a goddamn maniac.

Maybe he was just a glutton for punishment?

Jetstorm kept himself tucked under the overpass as he watched the other general start another lap. It was a rudimentary figure eight pattern, taking the freeway entrance going southbound and exiting at the next mile marker before looping back down. Over and over again. Something just… wasn’t right with ground-pounders. How the frag could they manage to keep their sanity following the same roads all the time? The smaller mech was dwarfed by the eight lanes he was weaving between, skirting past obstacles as he came up on them. For the most part Thrust travelled in the same lane, practicing drifting off the exit whenever they came up. Tightening the turns every time. The sound of the mech’s engine revving up and down popped like individual gunshots.

The echo was particularly obnoxious with the acoustics surrounding Jetstorm’s current perch. The flier pulled his wings tight against his body as he leaned as far in as possible out of the rain. So much for a “quick” run. Five cycles, Thrust said. Five! What a load of scrap this whole thing was.

The jet scowled when the other general swerved to purposely hit a puddle on the next lap back. Then, as to be expected, Thrust immediately spun out and ended up hitting the dividing wall to the opposite highway. The maroon mech transformed in time to catch himself on the barricade and let loose a string of swears on impact. The resulting crunch wasn’t pleasant sounding, but Thrust was still cursing when he bounced off the wall and went down. Alive… good! No need to rush out in the rain to pick up his partner’s body, or something.

Jetstorm waited for the sky to stop dumping before floating down. Thrust had rolled onto his back, arm raised to shield his face from spare droplets still coming from the low hanging clouds.

The blue mech leaned over him. “You finished, biker boy?” 

“Nice of you to harp on my rescue,” Thrust said. He reached up with a clawed servo, finally revealing his face. The mech’s visor was cracked. “You gonna gawk at me all day, or am I actually gonna get a leg up from you?” 

Jetstorm held out his servo, yanking Thrust upward when they made contact. He pulled the other mech up— and kept pulling. The momentum brought Thrust upward too fast for him to regain his balance. He immediately pitched forward and ended up face first in the asphalt again. The sound of armor on concrete was grating.

“Aurgh! Storm!”

“You said you needed a leg up. Not that you needed to stay up.” Jetstorm scoffed at the streaks in his partner’s armor. He crossed his massive arms in disgust. “Eugh. You look hideous.” 

“Don’t be so blue about it.” 

“Did you just... use a pun? On me?” Jetstorm kept sneering, but this time he couldn’t help but feel a little stupid about it. "I could just— I will beat you to death with my bare servos. You know that, don’t you?” 

“Cute.” Thrust propped himself back up on his own. He was a little less helpless when he wasn’t stuck on his back. As he turned, Jetstorm could see that the treads on his tire were almost bald. There was no way that wasn’t going to be sore. “I’d like to see you try.” 

“I’m cold and wet, and I want to go somewhere that isn’t dripping with anything that’s gonna corrode this paintjob!” Jetstorm bristled at the sound of thunder. “I am not letting myself get caught in another— urgh! How can you stand that?” 

“Eeh. The tingling’s not so bad once you get used to it. Rain wasn’t even that concentrated this time.” Thrust shook his head where it was still dripping with excess water. Then he allowed the shuddering motion to carry into his shoulders and downward.  Water flew off his armor. Jetstorm recoiled to avoid being hit, raising his taloned hands in self-defense. The cycle-general swayed but otherwise kept himself from falling over again when he was finished. “Just gotta pop yourself into a working CR tank. Buffs everything right out.”

“That stuff is gross. You’re gross. Stop it. You will never get me into one of those things.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’d rather have me buff out your wings. I remember.” Thrust rolled past, wincing. He’d visibly damaged one of the shock supports in his suspension on the right side, giving him a tilted “limp” that looked even more sore than his tire. “You keep overloading whenever I do, though.”

“Mmm, speaking of which...” It was a nice subject change. Jetstorm let Thrust pass him before turning to follow, keeping close as a precaution— just in case the damaged support gave out. He wondered if he had aggravated the injury by allowing him to fall that second time. Not that he was worried or anything. That would be… “Well. Never mind.” 

“What? You not in the mood for anything?” 

“You’re not exactly in good working condition, biker boy.” 

“I can take my fair share of hits.”

“Why did you even aim for the puddle, anyways?” 

They made it to the shadow of the next overpass when Thrust leaned into him in the dark. Right where no prying optics could see them. Just for balance. Yeah. Jetstorm, being the superior mech he was, allowed the temporary contact as a show of good faith. No other reason.

“You’re warm,” Thrust muttered.

“You’re drenched, and you still didn’t answer my question.”  

The cyclist hummed. The answer was exactly as dumb as he expected for the grounder. “Why not? Looked like it might be fun. You should try it sometimes. Y’know. Stuff that’s actually fun. Not just goading the she-spider or shooting the rest of the Paw Patrol.”

Jetstorm sighed, turning around. He aimed his primary weapons, allowed time for a sufficient charge, and fired off a single plasma round. The shot warbled as it singed the humid air, striking the original underpass where he had been sheltering. The bridge immediately collapsed in an upheaval of debris and fire. It cleaved through the highway below and destroyed the bridge suspension. All eight lanes converged in a crumbling twist of shattered asphalt and bent titanium beams.

Thrust shouted and reeled back as the ground shook, catching himself on the closest barricade again. As the crumbling structure tore through the road, water sprayed upward from thousands of puddles now ruined.

“Huh. Whatcha know? That was kind of fun,” Jetstorm said.

Thrust buried his face in his servos and muttered something about needing to find him a hobby, or literally anything other than goddamn feral vandalism.

#beast machines #mccadam #jetstorm #transformers #boxy does fanfic #thrust/jetstorm #HEY IF YOU GUYS WANT MORE I WILL TOTALLY PUBLISH MORE DRABBLES MAYBE #this is a good ship and I will throw hands with blackarachnia personally #jetstorm voice: get me wet and I will BLUDGEON YOU to DEATH with my MASSIVE BASTARD HANDS