The Convention of Conventions

Part Five

There was warmth . . . warm good . . .

I curled in as close as I could to the warmth, sighing with contentment. The world blacked out again, everything falling into a fuzzy, WARM darkness. Darkness is good . . . warmth is even better . . .

Shifting.

Huh?

No! Warmth is leaving! Must . . . hold . . . on . . .

Aah. Stopped. Good source of warmth. Very good.

In some part of my mind, I registered an exasperated growl, and a mutter. “Let go, Sinead.”

No. Warmth good. Warmth nice. WARMTH IS NOT LEAVING!!!

I only held on tighter, resisting the warmth-bringer’s attempts to leave. There’s another sigh, another growl, and it resisted stronger. I wrapped my arms around the main body of the warm creature, and buried my face in it, then sighed in return to his growls. He growled once again. I guess that he wasn’t happy with me anymore. Why would a creature of warmth be angry with me? “Let me go, Sinead. Now.”

I yawned, and paid no more attention to him, falling back asleep, but still keeping my death-hold upon him. He would learn.

He struggled some more, then tried to pry my fingers off of him first. As soon as he had disengaged both of my arms, he tried to move, but I whimpered. Another exasperated growl, then a sigh. “Why me?”

He released my arms, and I wrapped them around his torso again, burying my face into the folds of his loose, warm shirt. A barely recognizable murmur left my lips, as I shuddered with delight that my warmth-creature would stay. “Warm.”

“Of all the . . . ! Was that all that it was about?! By the Pit, Sinead!!!”

I sighed into his chest, then curled more into him, not caring about anything or anyone. Of course, if you were in my position, you would be just as content, just as happy.

Was.

Warm.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

My eyes opened, but all I saw were blurs. “Randon? Go away.”

“No, I am not ‘Randon,’ whomever that may be.”

Someone came tumbling down the stairs, closely followed by another tumble. Sapphire and Randon ran around the tall person-thingie, and stood in a fighting stance. Dane stretched, and sat up, rubbing at his head. “Sinead, you are one hard human to wake up.”

I opened my eyes again, and saw who had addressed us earlier. “Holy crap it’s Barney.”

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!?!?!”

Sapphire snickered. “Lovely choice of words, Sinead.”

“Couldn’t have said it any better!” Randon complemented.

“But however much I hate to say it, Megs has a point: What were you two up to last night?”

I glared at Sapphire. “Nothing.”

Dane snorted. “What makes you think that anything happened?”

“So you two are denying, I see . . . so that means that something really happened!” Randon said, grinning. “Ooh, I like this!”

“You also happen to be attracted to anything that’s everything that even appears to have slightly feminine qualities,” I muttered. Sapphire and Dane both burst out laughing at my statement.

Randon glared at us. “What. Did. She. Say.”

I sighed, stretched, and stood. “Oh, nothing.”

“WILL SOMEONE TELL ME THE MEANING OF THIS?!?!?!?!”

My ears throbbed with the bellow, but I didn’t flinch. I just drew in a large breath, and . . .

“IF YOU CONTINUE TO YELL, I’LL BELLOW BACK JUST AS LOUD!!!!! SHUT!!!!! UP!!!!!” I cleared my throat, and smiled sweetly at him. “Understand?”

Megatron only gaped. I made up my mind to find a certain fanfiction author, and fast.

“Hello. Is a Starath there?”

“Huh? Oh. Sure.” The other voice was of a younger boy’s. “What’s your name?”

“Tell her that a Sinead is calling for her, please.”

“’Kay. Be right back. HEY!!!!! Starath!!!!! SOMEONE’S CALLIN’ FOR ’YA!!!!!” There was a pause, a faint voice, then, “OKAY!!!!! She’ll pick up the phone in a moment.”

The sound of another line picking up was heard, then, “Timmy. Get. Off. Now.”

“Okay,” the boy’s now-sullen voice said. He put the receiver down, or so it seemed.

An exasperated sigh. “I can’t stand that kid. So. Who’s this?”

“Sinead.”

“No way!”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Listen, I’ve got a little problem.”

“And you came to me? But-but–”

“Woah, there, easy. I need your help.”

“But what about any others? Uhm . . . Sapphire, Nurannoniel, maybe? Miss Special?”

“Nope. No good. Would you mind if I put you on speaker phone?”

“All right!”

I sighed as silently as I could, as I switched over to the different function. “Okay, Listen up. I have a visitor, a quite unwelcome guest, and I think that you may be able to handle him.”

“Uh-oh . . . if you can’t handle him . . .”

“Megatron.”

I heard the phone drop and hit the floor. Then, a stumble and a scatter, and she was back. “You want me to handle that guy?!”

The back door opened to the kitchen, and Moonraker bounced in, with Cheetor, Chandler, right behind her. I smiled. “Hey, Moonraker. Sapphire’s downstairs, and Chandler! Watch out for purple rampaging Tyrannosaurs, ’kay?”

Chandler groaned, and replied, “Go figure. Just our luck, huh? Oh, well. Hey, who are you talking to?”

I shrugged. “Starath.”

Moonraker spun around, and looked at me. “Starath? You mean the author that’s occasionally onto Sapph’s message board?! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT YOU WERE GOING TO GET IN TOUCH WITH HER?!?!?!?!?!”

“Is she always like this?” Starath whispered over the connection.

I sighed. “Sometimes. You get used to it, I guess. Hey, Raker, the good stuff is on the top shelf in the fridge, at the back again. Knock yourself out.” She did so, and I sighed again. “Well, that takes care of that.”

“What do you mean, the ‘good stuff’?” Starath asked, wary.

I chuckled. “You know her personality, right? I sent her after the spray cheese.”

“Eww . . . nasty stuff.”

“That’s what Sapphire and I say. And Randon and Dane.”

“Huh? Who are they?”

“Rattrap and Dinobot.”

“WOAH!!!”

“You get used to stuff like this. Mainframe was a pain in our butts for a few months, to keep an eye on a few of them.”

Dane walked into the kitchen, and indicated the kettle, sitting on the stove. I smiled. “Sure. Don’t burn yourself, this time!”

“I won’t, I won’t,” Dane said.

“Hey, nice voice . . .”

“That would be Dinobot, in the human sort of form.”

Dane chuckled evilly. “You two going to fight over me?”

Randon poked his head into the room. “Dere’s a first time fer everythin’, now ain’t dere?”

Dane placed the kettle on the stove, turned the gas on, and looked at me. I shrugged. “Don’t kill him, because you know how disappointed Sapphire will get!”

“I heard that!”

I silently wished him back into his normal form. “Sic ’im, boy.”

With an eerie yelping snarl, Dinobot was off like a shot after Randon.

My mom’s voice called from the second floor. “Don’t break anything, or I’ll break your faces!!!”

“Who was that?” Starath’s shocked voice asked meekly.

I laughed once. “My mother! She’s the greatest.”

“O-kay.”

“No really, she is! She’s pinned Randon, or Rattrap, up against the wall three times over the past day alone. Then, she’s won five times in chess against Dinobot, and has played multiple games of darts with Cheetor . . . and won them all.”

Silence from her end. Then, “When do I come over?”

“How far away are you from Massachusetts?”

I gave her directions, and we left it at that. I went in search of Dinobot and found him locked in a closet in the den. I opened the door, saw him start to run out, when I was pushed in, and the door was closed and locked behind me. I ended up tripping over a pair of shoes, and fell into Dinobot’s chest. He caught me, and set me right again. “You stepped in it this time, Sinead.”

“No slag, Sherlock. It would only take a genius to realize that, now wouldn’t it?”

He sighed, and pushed against the door lightly. “Your mother said not to break anything. Otherwise I would have ripped this thing free within seconds. I doubt that she would appreciate that.”

I sighed, and leaned against the wall of the spacious closet. “You’re learning.”

He leaned against the opposite wall. My eyes were finally adjusted to the dark. His optics were drifting over my face. I caught his gaze. “What are you looking at?”

His face showed a bored _expression. “The wall behind you, Sinead. Of course I’m looking at your face!”

“Jeesh, rip my head off, willya.”

He snorted. “I don’t like this situation one bit. It reeks of a set-up.” I chuckled. He glared at me. “And I find nothing humorous about it.”

I shook my head. “You’ve never heard of a potential couple being shut in a closet, to see if anything would happen between them?”

“Oh.”

I laughed again, and looked around the closet. “He’s probably bugged this place.”

Dinobot moved one foot. I heard a distinctive crunching noise, and shuddered. “Don’t tell me that was a spider. Those huge wolf spiders come into the house every now and again.”

“Negative. One of Rattrap’s little surprises. There’s one by your left foot.”

I stepped on it, then felt something by my right. It crunched, and I saw Dinobot wince. I froze, looked down, and screamed, launching myself to the other side of the closet, wiping my shoe against the floor. I heard laughter from outside, and Dinobot stepped on something else. He looked down at me. “Are you okay?”

“That was a spider the size of my fist!!! Of course I’m not okay!” I yelped in return.

He sighed, and reached over his head to the shelf, and picked up a few things, and crushed them in his fist. “Here. Look up there, and see if anything is left.”

“How am I gonna– woah!” He lifted me up, and I looked around the top of the shelf. There. In the corner. I hit it with my fist, then saw something out of the corner of my eye. I looked, and saw the bug. I hit that one, and heard a whine from the other side of the door. “That’s it. I think.”

Dinobot nodded, and let me down. Before he could say anything, though, I heard Sapphire’s voice. “We’re not letting the two of you out, until we have proof that you two kissed!”

“WHAT?!” we roared in return. I pounded on the door. “That’s not fair!”

“Life’s not fair, Sinead, and you know it. Hey, how about you do it, and get it over with, huh?”

Dinobot snorted, and leaned against the back wall, facing the door. I sat next to him, glaring at the wooden barrier. “Go away, Sapphire.”

“Okay! Where to?”

I ignored her. Dinobot sighed. “Lovely mess we’ve gotten into.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“There isn’t enough space in here.”

I wished him human, and replied, “Now there is.”

He only glared at me, and sighed. I shivered in the dark, and saw that all the coats, jackets, and sweaters had been removed. I sighed. “They even thought of me getting chilly.”

All of a sudden, I was pulled against a warm body, and tucked right by their side, held there by an arm. I looked up to see Dane’s face there, smiling. “There.”

I smiled. “This will only set us up further.”

“I know.”

“You don’t seem to care.”

“You’re right. I don’t, now do I?”

I sighed, and curled closer to him. He sighed in return. I looked up at him, only to find that he had been watching me as well. With a shallow breath, I felt him curl his torso towards me, as his forehead gently leaned against mine. I closed my eyes, and moved my face carefully, until, quite by accident, mind you, our lips came in full contact with each other. We opened our eyes in a flash, and jumped apart from each other. But we never broke our eye-contact.

The doorbell rang.

I sighed, as I heard a set of feet run up the stairs to the first floor. Dane reached his hand out, and touched my cheek. “Perhaps . . . perhaps later, we can . . . talk about this.”

I nodded, and was about to verbally agree, when I found myself in his arms again. You know, I still would really like to know how that came to be. I sighed. “Who are we fooling, Dane? You know that . . . we . . . I mean, that . . .” I snorted. “Oh, screw it.”

We kissed again, and I felt him hold me closer. We broke apart for breath, for a split second, then were at it again.

And so, that was how Sapphire found us, when she opened the door, to introduce us to Starath, the new author. You can only imagine the looks of surprised amusement at the fact that their little evil ploy had worked.

Click here for part 6