Chapter Text
Waking was a slow thing, talons gliding through each spine and tendrils that made up a sensitive network. The sound of muffled workings makes it known that Ozone is the one holding him. Brief disappointment fills them before settling back to warmth.
“Ozzy…”
“There you are, Sleepy beast.” Ozone chirps, mandibles clicking from under the star-scarred fabric. A red night, by the limited glow their optics had. “Back to the living are we? I thought I’d have to get Rung to sacrifice a tarp or two after you dozed off."
“Cheeky,” Is all he can get as he leans back as they pull his head back into their lap by the horn. “Cheeky scraplet.”
“That means you’re dinner.” Ozzy dips their helm down, optics going from dimmed to something molten. They really were going to play this game? No way are they biting him.
Decoy’s servo swallows their helm, uncaring if they could still talk. He can feel their antennae wiggling under the surface, so he laughs and keeps sitting right there. Ozone wasn’t a big androgen, they were barely shy of being a minibot if Decoy had to be honest. Itty bitty bug. Decoy squeezed their helm, feeling the soft give of the mesh that cushioned their plating and their struts from one another.
They trilled, squirming even further into his palm, with how their mouthpieces shifted. Dec knew that Ozone was smiling under that embroidered galaxy.
“You’re mean.”
Decoy shakes them side to side, and they squeal with that whisling laughter, all four tiny servos wrapping his wrist to hold steady. “And I could throw you off the balcony and make you fly all the way back up on those wings of yours.”
More stifled laughter. “I love you too, afthole.”
**
In the blistering heat of the day, Rung wakes, lying against Decoy. Who is still somehow quite cool to the touch in the face of the inferno? Their dark face is soft, far more relaxed than he's ever really seen it, a cheek squished against an arm, and soft rumbles dance their way out of the mech.
Fingers reach up, curling around the edges, trailing to cradle those silly decorations in their horns, trying to take a better look. Decoy purrs, nuzzling closer to him, and when it doesn't feel quite enough, the draconic tries another tactic. The glider's large hands wrap his waist, holding him as if he were no larger than a rainhen, which he was far taller than and would've protested if it weren't for the fact that they looked so sweet sleeping and he enjoyed it too much to fight it with any sort of passion.
As they pull Rung to their spark, he can hear the echoes of Ozone's breathy laughter. He knew it was laughter, not by sound but by how their EM swelled with honey golds and trembling violets. He looks up over Decoy's shoulder to see where the source of the sound is, and finds Ozone sprawled on the pillows untangling Decoy's decorations. They aren't wearing their clothes. Ozzy was, in fact, for the lack of a better word- naked of all but a mask. Their digits in the seams of the mossy grey green of Decoy's protoform holding the sleeping mech still, the deep color complemented the off white and soft silvered plating.
Rung didn't see much of them from this angle due to Decoy's wing, but he didn't really have the urge to make them show more than what they trusted him with. Though he did take a moment to take in the color of such iridescent blues, the near black fading up into a deep cerulean. The translucent carapace doesn't shield them from much more than the pressure of the armoured body the bug lies upon, as the mesh under shifts and molds to shape. He can see the slick inner mechanisms as they click along, such as soft machinery, hardware, wetware, and mismatched methodology, which somehow work to keep ozone alive. The biolights within he'd never seen before, glowing softly as they thrummed in tune with a sparkbeat. This was the clearest part of them; any further from their belly, the mesh was translucent enough to only see silhouettes of what kept them running, and the glow of energon filled biotubing.
He didn't know why he was staring, but he struggled to focus on anything else.
They were insecure about this? A clear belly is what made others tear the poor thing down?
Most everyone he'd seen on this planet had been in some portion organic, the symbiosis between them and the fungal life they worked alongside, which should make the politics on Organics and hybrids seem silly. Rung saw nothing but art in that frame, the harmony between the alien and the familiar undeniable. He didn't really see much that he could qualify as shameful, but then again, he wasn't one to let those thoughts be left unaddressed or ignored.
Since he was awake and had no plans to sleep, he turned his attention back onto the high priest snoring away beneath him.
He hadn't seen the mech preach a sermon, which he would think to be one of a priest's responsibilities. They mostly read, sifting through texts and revising them, using a data pad to annotate scanned files from old tablets and heavy tomes. Scholar is the title brought to mind, rather than priest, but Rung conceded the point was more about his experiences with religion than it was the legitimacy of their title.