#anode

Every sailor eventually asks, “How do I stop corrosion?”  There is no simple fix for corrosion, because it isn’t a simple thing.  We need to understand the subtle chemical processes that drive corrosion . . . and how to stop that chemistry. 

Lug x Anode & platonic reader

"No." Lug said, squeezing her wife's hand. "We aren't going to break our rites for your scrap heap of a treaty."

"We are dedicated, closed. I know you are looking for neutrals to bring down some of the tension, but there's other worlds we could settle on." Anode grit her teeth.

"Payment could be negotiated, the program comes with daily energon with the service." Prowl offered.

"There's enough energon on this world to support that?" Anode asked.

"Yes, but the majority is under Earth military control." He said.

Lug scoffed. "So it's for your benefit. You misreport our needs, and skim off the top foe a stockpile. Once again, we starve for your needs, business as usual."

"Lug, please. It's a decent offer, and we aren't miners or refining specialists. I'm not letting you get sick again." Anode begged.

"Fine. Where do we sign?"

You weren't supposed to have been hired for this job. The positions were strictly 21+, but you had a fake ID and pure desperation on your side. You couldn't afford rent or paying for the next semester's tuition without it, and the private housing was far too tempting not to try. Besides, you had siblings to send money home to.

Your supervisor, an older man with exhausted but kind eyes, took one look at you and sighed. "I swear, they get younger every day." His assistant tried to give you an iPad, but it was snatched out of his hands. "Absolutely not. Not him, I will deal with him today. HR is useless here, and I will not have another incident. This one just came in two days ago, a bonded pair, reluctant to join the program, not looking for any sort of extra duties. If anything goes weird or doesn't feel right, you go straight to me. Not HR, me. Understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. I mean it. You can come talk to me anytime. Read it through, then go find the stall.

"Leave the soap, don't touch." Anode ordered as you pulled the cart into the room.

"I have to stay, I don't get paid otherwise, and you will get in trouble."

"Fine. The energon?"

"Here. For the record, I'm sorry." You say, offering one of the cubes to Anode, Lug taking the other one off the cart.

The two of them drank.

"Do we really want to ..." Anode wondered. She thought about it more. "This is good energon. And it and the housing is free, and the extra benefits."

"All we have to do is accept ... this." Lug muttered.

"But the kids, we've wanted a family, this place gives us enough energon to try." Anode grinned at the thought.

"Shush, it isn't just us." Lug hissed.

The two of them were clinical as they wiped each other down, more looking for scratches, rust spots, and dents than enjoying the experience.

When they were done, they looked at you.

"You're dismissed. Go get your pay." Lug said, waving you away.

You came in on the second day to both bots folded into their alt modes, a electric buzzing in the air that you could almost taste.

"We were chewed out for not letting you touch us." Lug muttered. "This is a compromise. You have no place with us, or claim on our potential future bitlets that don't exist yet."

"That's ok, I'm a little young to be a parent anyway."

"Wait. How old are you?" Anode asked.

"21." You lied. "Born a month before the age cutoff for the program."

"Weird. Anyway, our fields are overlapping so we can share what we feel. Compromise!" Anode opened her trunk. "Just put the energon into the truck, we aren't going to be drinking it today."

"Alright then." You loaded it up, watching as Anode deployed a pair of spindle hands from out of her seats and clicked caps on both cubes, both of them dropping into her subspace.

"Now that's sorted, couple's spa day."

About a week into the arrangement - days alternating between Lug and Anode cleaning each other or having you detail them in their alt modes, you were comfortable asking them questions.

"I was talking with the other caretakers. A lot of the bots find both of you... weird. Both because of the fact that you really want nothing to do with me, and some stuff I don't understand."

Lug sighed. "By your understanding of gender, we are both transfemme, but in ours, it doesn't really matter, since we all have the same base equipment, just individual expression. We don't have the same type of misogyny humans struggle with, but don't get me wrong, we are plenty good at inventing new and exciting forms of discrimination. Like the fact that we didn't want to die in a stupid war."

"And that we are small, and have different jobs than the ones we were created for. Even though that makes them hypocrites, since almost none of them were built as soldiers if they created before the war." Anode sounded frustrated. "Anyway, you earned us a spa day for making us explain that for the hundredth time."

Colors!

"Get out." Lug hissed, pointing at your new uniform. "No, we said that you're not a part of our relationship."

"Lug, I'm sure they mean nothing about it. All the other caretakers got new uniforms, think of what we get out of this." Anode pleaded.

"No. No no no no! They do not get to butt in. Get out!"

I want all the children, I must raise an army /lhj I, at least, only have one kid to my name </3

This was supposed to be a silly, quick and simple doodle... It very much did NOT end up being quick or a simple doodle </3 can't have shyte in the UK

Uni is kickin our asses, but we're cookin up a comic for an au of Bee's, so there's that to look forward to eventually... Have a nice day/night chat <3