damned_institute | Day 41: Intercom, Evening

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Day 41: Intercom, Evening

When the intercom's jingle sounded, there seemed to be some kind of tapping in the background noise, like letters being punched into a keyboard. It stopped and the Head Doctor chuckled.

"Hello, everyone! I'm actually taking a break from paperwork for once – everyone needs some recreational time, you know! – and of course, now we can all look forward to a scrumptious dinner from our cooks. Tonight, herb-seasoned grilled salmon is on the menu, served with buttery mashed potatoes and asparagus. All our regular drinks and vegetarian options are available, and for dessert, we will be serving yellow cake with a whipped cream icing.

"...Well! I can hardly wait to get my own dinner after saying all that. Good bye for now, everyone, and enjoy your delicious food!"

The intercom clicked off.

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"Statement: I'm glad there's no room for a meatbag to fit inside of my chassis. That is just disturbing." HK didn't really want to think about that very much. "The thought of meatbags controlling any inorganic like that is simply nauseating."

Lockdown snorted. "You think that sounds disgusting?" Which it did, but the bounty hunter thought he had something that could top humans controlling him in the ways of repussion. "Try getting space barnacles on your chassis. Those things are stubborn." He made a disgusted face at the thought.

Oh, this didn't sound good. HK froze, as if preparing to try and make a sniper shot on the concept. "Query: Space barnacles?" That already sounded worse than... well, just about any condition he knew of that a droid could get.

"They're these disgusting little parasites that usually attach themselves to ships and leech off its energy," Lockdown explained, sitting up in bed and crossing his legs. "They also go after robots, if the opportunity presents itself. They're oppossed to extreme heat, and usually have to be burned or steamed off. My informants told me some rumors that some barnacles made it to that dirtball planet, Earth, and mutated. The mutation caused the barnacles to gain control of any mech they touched, turning them dim-witted, slow-moving, snarling, and hungry for mech-fluid."

Energy parasites were bad enough. Mynocks were always a problem in some areas of space, but only to ships, most of the time. Maybe astromechs who worked on ship's hulls (Ha ha, T3-M4 with a mynock attached to his chassis. That would be worth seeing). But bad feelings about certain other droids aside, something that could easily latch on to him was disgusting. An organic feeding off of his power cells? Unthinkable!

Unfortunately, baring thinking about that idea left the much worse things that could apparently happen to a droid. HK actually managed a facial expression of shock and disgust, mouth slightly open. "Statement: ...Wonderful. Slow, stupid, droid rakghouls." Immediately that reminded him of how the things mutated heavily to become the monsters that they were to meatbags. He didn't want some parasite rearranging his chassis for its own nefarious use!

"This must be exterminated." Because when he heard stories from the rest of the Ebon Hawk's crew of what rakghouls were like, it was simply funny. When it could happen to him, it was terrifying.

It was easy for Lockdown to see that HK was clearly terrified of his stories of space barnacles. Primus, he'd actually gotten space barnacles on him a few times, and his worse reaction was extreme disgust, then he'd just burned them off. This kid hadn't seen them ever and was scared out of his wits at just the concept.

"Aw, relax kid," Then an idea formed in his processor. Lockdown somehow managed not to smirk, and patted the spot on his bed next to where he was sitting. "C'mere, sit down with me. It'll make you feel better."

To use a meatbag phrase, HK wanted brain bleach. He had been quite happy not to know about parasites that could attach to his real body, or mutant ones that could control it. Mostly, the real problem was that he didn't have his flamethrower to make him feel better.

At the moment, he was open to certain new and different ideas. Forgoing his normal crushing anxiety about close physical proximity to anyone who looked even remotely meatbag-like, HK did as suggested and went to join Lockdown on his side of the cell.

He really wanted his flamethrower back.

Lockdown was pleased that HK did as he suggested. No matter what the context or circumstances, it did feel good to have some power of suggestion over another.

The bounty hunter put a hand on the younger man's back comfortingly. "Don't worry, kid, old Lockdown'll make sure no big, bad barnacles come and get you." He 'neglected' to remind HK that there appeared to be no barnacles here at the institute, and even if there were, they couldn't touch either of them in these flesh bodies. Lockdown ran his hand up and down HK's back smoothly.

"Denial: I'm not scared. Just cautious." Damn prefixes. At least a slightly ambiguous one had been applicable to this situation.

Normally, HK probably would have immediately fled the physical contact, but for now he was distracted with being scared, being embarrassed over being scared, and being in denial over being scared. Also, he vaguely associated touches to his back to the one afternoon that he'd somehow been convinced to get a backrub from a meatbag. SubZero had broken that up. Now that he remembered it, he was still miffed. Well, the meatbag wasn't here now. That was good. ...Right?

Even without the prefix, Lockdown knew denial when he saw it. The prefix just confirmed it all the more.

The bounty hunter put his arm around HK's shoulder and pulled the younger man to him slowly. Normally Lockdown wouldn't consider taking things this slowly, but there were times when that had to be the case. This was one of them. Plus, it made things much easier when the other person was feeling some sort of extreme emotion, like, in this case, fear. This whole thing was about getting HK to trust him and let him near, and Lockdown couldn't do that if he was his usual abrasive self.

Using his free hand to pat HK's nearest hand, Lockdown said, "Relax, I don't think there are any here. And if there are, well, we won't let them get their slimy selves on you, will we?"

HK was still very, very tense, but less immediately scared. "Affirmative: Yes." All meatbags could be killed. These parasites (Slimy too? Urgh.) couldn't be any different.

It also seemed that denial was also being brought to bear on what sort of immediate predicament he'd gotten himself into here. Yes, denial was the best course of action. At least there weren't any space barnacles.

"There ya' go," Lockdown gave HK his best reassuring smile, giving him a friendly little shake with the arm that was still wrapped around the other man. This was going along quite nicely.

The older man gave HK a nice little pat on the cheek with his free hand, under the pretext of trying to be further comforting. Lockdown was a very physical mech anyway; whether it be fighting, tearing into some mech's chassis, or spending intimate and/or friendly moments with others. He could chalk all this up to his nature if HK asked.

"Statement: Whichever direction I'm going, I hope that there will be no bizarre parasitic meatbags there." HK scootched just slightly closer to Lockdown at the thought of those things again. He knew this was probably highly illogical, but that didn't stop the idea from being innately disturbing.

"Addendum: And chocolate." His thought process was slowly returning to normal, but only just enough to begin internally questioning why he was over here instead of staying on his side of the cell.

Lockdown gave HK a little squeeze, patting his body lightly. Perhaps it was now time to move it up a level? This would either go smoothly, or backfire on him. Oh well, he was a gambler sometimes.

"Relax, I'm sure you won't run into any parasites here," He grinned at the younger man. "I can show you something that's just as good as chocolate, if you want. It may even help you calm down."

HK perked up slightly. Something almost as good as chocolate? He was skeptical. After all, chocolate was... chocolate. How could anything come close?

"Query: What is it?"

Lockdown's grin widened even further, exposing his white dentals. "Oh, I think you'll enjoy this. Close your optics..."

The bounty hunter used the hand that wasn't around HK's shoulders to gently catch the younger man's chin and pull his face upward. Lockdown closed his own optics and leaned down to press his thin, pale lips to HK's in a kiss. Had he not decided to take things slowly, he would have been a little rougher, and possibly try to kiss the other man with his glossa. That, however, would have to wait.

Being the sometimes oddly trusting droid that HK was, he did as he was told. He was used to following strange orders anyway.

It didn't keep for long, eyes very suddenly opening wide in shock. Rather paralyzing shock, which was probably fortunate for all involved. He was being kissed. By Lockdown. The most he could manage to express his thoughts on the matter was a small, surprised and confused sound. ...What does this have to do with chocolate?!

Lockdown held the kiss for a little longer, smiling against HK's lips when he made that little noise.

The bounty hunter soon broke the kiss, slowly drawing back. He grinned at HK, "How'd you like that? Felt good, didn't it?" Felt good for him anyway. He hadn't kissed anyone in years, and had felt rather down on the subject ever since Prowl had rejected him. However, this more than helped Lockdown get some of that off his chest.

HK sat there, still looking quite stunned. "It..." Damn it, he was dropping his prefixes again! "Denial: No." What? DAMN IT, PREFIXES! His cheeks now felt as if it had suddenly experienced a temperature jump of several degrees. No doubt that meant he was blushing an unfortunately noticeable shade. Damn it.

Lockdown was grinning audio to audio as he watched HK blush furiously after denying that he had liked the kiss.

"Aw, don't try to hide it, HK," Lockdown said smoothly. "Admit it, you liked it."

"Fine, yes, I did!" HK said, prefix getting lost somewhere along the way to his vocabulator.

How had this shift gone from getting punched to this?!

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Lockdown had to admit that he did get a kick out of watching HK squirm. He had always taken pleasure over having some power over others and making them feel uncomfortable. And right now, HK was as uncomfortable as he could get.

"Give me a chance, and I can show you things that go way beyond that in the ways of pleasure."

"Denial: Yes it was." HK muttered, knowing that prefix was coming out before it was even uttered. He almost wished the things would go away, just for now.

HK might have been described as squirming before, but now he really did. He couldn't manage to get out more than an "Uh..." which didn't exactly help his point. Whatever his point was. He wished he'd clue himself in on that.

Lockdown tightened his grip on HK when he started squriming for real. No way he was letting the former droid get away that easily.

"Let's just say that I can make you experience pleasures that you've probably never dreamed of. I've had several millenia to get good at it. Plus, you like pain, don't you? Well, I can give you plenty of nice, controlled pain to go with that pleasure."

HK tried to sink down in the tighter grip. He'd learned quite a while ago that attacking allies was bad. It had taken a lot of work to get that lesson through to him, but now he was stuck in between wanting reflexively to attack the thing that was causing him such embarrassment, and trying to preserve his own long-term goals (Yes, he had some).

"Statement: I'm supposed to go get a blade tonight," He said, fortunately not having to say anything like 'Excuse:'.

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