kismet_loop_logs | "Home" is a shelter from storms

Entry tags:

"Home" is a shelter from storms

Who: Hiro, Sam, eventually Dirge, ETA: Breakdown
What: Since Hiro has to have somewhere to stay, Sam's helping him get situated.
When: Following this thread
Where: The Hub.
Warnings: Dirge, and predictably, profanity.

From the hall, there was little to distinguish Sam’s apartment. Its door was one among many in the human-scale section of the Hub’s habitation wing, and could’ve easily been exchanged for any of the others found on the third floor. Still, it was Sam’s, and even outside that showed. It was in her ‘here we are’ attitude, and the way she set a shoulder against the doorframe in pausing. Some introduction seemed appropriate, so…

She shrugged, smiling.

“It’s not my house, but all the same? ‘Enter freely, go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring.’”

That said, she opened the door.

The room it opened onto wasn’t unusual in its design (a kitchenette with a partial wall, the principle living space, one wide window with a decent view, closet, corridor) but it was unusual in its décor---burnished copper covered the floor, the walls, the ceiling, in solid sheets. It wasn’t entirely unbroken, as darkly-varnished branches had been laid across the walls like latticework, and a couple of shaggy rag rugs covered a portion of the floor. A third (green, rust-red, and ochre, like the others) had been thrown over the couch, which was wicker (matching most of the furniture) and more of a stubby settee.

“It was weird enough I fell in love when I found it.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hiro takes a moment to scowl (because that burp was at least an 8.5, thank you very much) then clatters along after Sam. There might need to be a preventative apology to any neighbors, since Hiro, like most teenagers, sounds like a herd of elephants whenever he goes anywhere. Considering his relative tininess, that's actually sort of impressive.

The zillions of questions that Hiro still has (up to and including some petulant whining about who "he" is), disappear when he does, in fact, see for himself. His first reaction is to freeze in the doorway -- he's only been here for like a day, he's not used to giant robots being the norm -- but his second is, of course: snark.

"What if Dirge eats him? Then we're totally screwed."

"Yeah. Hiro, Breakdown, Breakdown, Hiro Hamada." Grateful that the second Hiro had spent still and (importantly!) silent had afforded her time enough for introductions, Sam turned on the teen, amused and---for a moment---mock-incredulous. "Oh, ye of little faith! While you're right in that we'd be just wholly hooped, it's not going to happen."

Breakdown smirks, one massive hand transforming into a massive mallet. "He'll find me rather hard to swallow." He smacks that hammer into his other palm, a confident, and almost eager, grin on his face.

...Breakdown is now the coolest one, sorry Sam, you're still awesome, but you can't turn your hand into a mallet.

Sam does get a wide-eyed, almost hopeful look. "Do you think he'll try?" Aka: is Hiro gonna get to see a huge robot fistfight?

"I didn't know you could do that!" There were no apologies necessary---Sam was as impressed as her guest, and it showed. She started towards the big bot in the same breath she'd spoken, obviously intending to inspect what had been his hand. "I don't even know if it's the just-you 'you' or the you-guys 'you' I should be using. Can all Cybertronians do that, or something similar? Do you have other rearrangements?"

She cast a glance over her shoulder to Hiro, unwilling to ignore his question in favour of her own. "Maybe? Good sense should stop him, but for all his greed, that's one thing Dirge seems to be short on. It probably depends on if we piss him off."

Ooooh, did he just show off? Well, maybe a little. He smirks and puts the hammer down on the ground for the two humans to inspect.

"Not all, but a number of us can change out our hands for something. My partner has a buzz-saw and a drill, me, just a couple of hammers." He'll let his other hand change, then change back.

And of course Hiro is right over there to poke and prod and examine this awesome hand-hammer up close. "Woahhhhhh dude! How do you do that?!" He's not totally expecting an explanation beyond "because it's awesome" but lbr he'll totally accept that.

Unabashed in her investigation--both palms pressed to the hammer as she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Hiro, insofar as the youth stood still--Sam concluded "That is so cool."

She leaned forward a little, wondering at the seeming seamlessness of the metal beneath her hands, and sounded hopeful in asking, "Do it again, please? Can you do it slower, or is it a started-no-stopping-no-slowing sort of thing?"

Edited 2015-04-21 00:15 (UTC)

"I can slow it down a little bit." He'll pull his hammer back and change it back to his hand as slowly as possible. It's not too slow, but should be slow enough for them to catch some more details. "Better?"

Hiro is absolutely enthralled, standing on tiptoe so he can catch every detail and nodding rapidly, like it makes perfect sense to him. Maybe it does, who can tell?

"Okay, nevermind, nobody's eating you at all. Ever. Period. Where were you when the whole pig fiasco happened?"

"Much. Thank you!" The adept couldn't keep from grinning, not that she would've bothered to try---Breakdown had made her day thrice over already, what with agreeing to act as escort, the surprise of his hammers, (to say nothing of the accompanying information regarding Cybertronians' shape-changing abilities,) and his humouring her request so readily. It was a small thing, sure, but still something she appreciated.

Good friends help you move.
FACT.

She snorted some sort of half-laugh at Hiro's question, shaking her head... and holding her tongue. For its entertainment value, the story of 'the whole pig fiasco' would be told by the boy, without her interrupting.

Edited 2015-04-21 13:19 (UTC)

“Dunno. When’d this pig fiasco go down?”

Once they’d had their look he transformed his hand back to normal, then stepped back and transformed again, popping the near door open for them to crawl in. Unlike Wing, he has an Earth-based alt that accommodates passengers, though this will be the first time he’s actually had a human, let alone two, in his cab.

"When I first got here--" Hiro's going to break off and skitter backwards a little, bumping into Sam, because wow, okay, nobody mentioned Breakdown was also a car.

Truck. Car. Cartruck. Have a very confused kid turning to you, Sam, and silently asking for an explanation.

Sam huffed quietly (and unconsciously, attention all on the big bot before her) at being bumped into, but stood where she was long enough to clap her hands together, both delighted and impressed. 'Surprised' was too strong a word to be accurate, if applied---she'd known Breakdown could transform into something, but she hadn't anticipated that something would have an interior in which she could comfortably sit.

"Roughly the size of my whole house! Hot damn." She paused long enough to spare Hiro a shrug, and explained over a shoulder as she made for the open door, all over the unspoken invitation. "All of the tall dudes---I think?---have a second shape they can change back and forth between, but not all of them have space for human-sized people inside. Gigantor here is the first of everyone who's offered me a lift. And the lift is very much appreciated, thank you, and pardon me."

The adept climbed into the cab, scooting over as soon as she sat so Hiro would have room to follow. Once seated and settled, she didn't touch anything other than Breakdown's upholstery, though she studied his interior with open interest.

Breakdown lets out a laugh at the both of them. Their reactions are vastly different, but both funny just the same. “Any Cybertronian can transform.” Even the grunts back home had alt modes.

His rearview adjusts a bit to watch Sam settle. It....actually felt kind of weird to have a person sitting on him like this. Not bad, just...weird. He mentally shrugged it off and turned his attention back to Hiro.

“Comin’ kid?”

Hiro hesitates for a moment -- is this really okay? They're climbing inside someone they were literally just talking to a second ago, after all...

But Sam's already up there and Breakdown seems cool with it, so if he's actually resentful or upset about it, Hiro can't be blamed, right? Another deep breath and the kid's climbing up (carefully) and settling himself next to Sam, looking somewhere between totally stoked and nervous.

"Uh...th-thanks."

Small though it was, the mirror's movement caught Sam's attention and she grinned at her reflection before turning her attention back to everything else. To sit inside someone was kind of weird, but Breakdown had set the bar for personal space/its invasion day one, and it wasn't that different from being carried in a cupped hand. 'Inside an alt,' she decided, was definitely doable, though there was one thing:

"I have no idea what the etiquette is for this." It wasn't a confession as much as an observation; Sam shrugged, sitting back, and made a small amused sound. "Sorry. 'Hands off just about everything' seems like a safe bet, should apply to someone else since it applies to someone else's just-a-car car, but... seatbelts? Yeah, nah? You, I trust; it's just other drivers I'd eye as iffy."

“Relax, kid, not like I’d offer a ride if I wasn’t okay with this.”

He watches the both of them settle in, cab rocking just a little in something of a shrug. “Nothing’s connected. You can touch whatever and I’ll not lose control.” That said he’ll take off. Seatbelts? Up to them. He’s just gonna take off down the road, headed for the warehouse.

Seatbelts save lives, buckle up every time!

Or so Baymax would say. Hiro's busy leaning forward and touching everything, as soon as he gets permission to, because this is who he is, let's be honest. He'll turn periodically to grin delightedly at Sam, because they're in a talking truck omg.

"You don't touch everything when you get in other people's cars? Seriously?"

The motion of the cab delayed Sam's answer; she had to spend a second getting a handle on her glee. "Nice. I didn't want to be rude'r assume anything; now we know." Having said so, she buckled up before turning to Hiro, amused.

"Not without asking. It would be impolite." She gestured in emphasis, one hand curling into the 'cut-off' signal. "I'll admit, I often hijack sound systems, but only with approved of CDs... and after an hour, the glovvie's fair game. But asking is important. And so are seatbelts."

Despite her sincerity, she couldn't sound too terribly serious; the situation was too cool to sound anything other than 'stoked.'

That.

Felt.

WEIRD.

It takes quite a measure of self control not to let a shiver run through his plating as Hiro presses buttons and they two move around, even if minimally, on his seats. And just to be ornery when Hiro presses the next button he lets his horn sound, a deep, intimidating horn, the kind one might associate with a semi-truck. It totally wasn’t the right button for the horn, but that’s half the fun.

“Whoops,” he sounds far too ‘innocent’ for that to be real, “guess I forgot to disconnect that one.”

"Impolite, schmimpolite. I mean, they don't need anything but the wheel and the pedals and whatever to drive, right? They use those in the past, don't they?" Have an eyeroll, Sam, because you're clearly missing out by not doing like Hiro does and getting your hands into everything.

...of course, there are consequences for that kind of thing too, as shown by sudden blaring horn that has Hiro yelping and jerking his hand back immediately. He figures it out pretty quickly, though, narrowing his eyes and frowning. "...why does your horn go off when your windshield wiper is pressed?"

"Yes, Hiro; we use 'whatever' in 2014." Sam's tone was dry, but she didn't mind the teasing much---or at all. It was, she suspected, only to be expected; Hiro seemed to be every bit as bad as she was for beakin' off to bigger people, and besides, his sense of humour was agreeable enough (and bound to be a huge help in processing what had happened). "Speakin' of, Breakdown--"

She started when Breakdown's horn went, but not as strongly as Hiro had---the sudden sound was sort of surprising, but it explained the flicker of intent across the big bot's aura. Amused, Sam returned to the inquiry she'd been about. "I've been meaning to ask, when were you on Earth? This little punk is from two decades further on than I am. Between the two of you, I don't know whether I feel kinda old or really, really green."

Breakdown chuckled, Hiro you silly child, you totally missed the tease. Ah well, meant he could play with the kid some more. “What are you talkin’ about kid? Why would I need the wipers on my windshield to work? Not like I see out of it like you do.” Well....it was true. “Where’s a horn in an Earth made vehicle?”

It was Sam he directed his next comment to. “I’m from around the same time you are. We got to Earth around 2012.”

Hiro doesn't exactly have a frame of reference for dealing with giant robots, jeez, shhhh. He frowns up at the windshield in curiosity, tilting his head to one side. "Why do you have it if you don't use it?" he asks, scooting forward as much as the seatbelt will allow. "And, uh, horns are usually in the middle of the wheel. Easy access."

Then he'll just snort to himself, highly amused at these out-of-date people. Ah, the past~

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