#Maybe freights after. Then coaches. Yas

[cconfusedkat]

making train refs cuz ive been needing to for the past year anyway- I COULD DRAW EVERYTRAIN OUGH. RHRRGEJRJH

[stex-secret-santa]

It's Cold Outside

(AN: My secret santa gift to @theredcaboose! They said they like stuff with CB or Dinah (or both), and stuff about the rocky horror show, the latter of which I sadly know next to nothing about. So, I had to write the next best thing :) Have some christmassy fluff for your soul. Hope you like it, and merry christmas/happy holidays! <333 :D)

Winter had slowly crept into the small yard of Apollo Victoria, at first only with lower temperatures and the occasional snowflake, but soon pulling out all the stops.

Dinah shivered, wrapping her arms around herself as she headed back towards the shed she shared with Ashley and Buffy. Pearl had moved in with Rusty since the championship, but she came back often, and it only felt a little odd not to wake up to her glittery pink self wheeling around excitedly in the early morning and fussing over her hair.

Dinah shut the shed door with a relieved sigh, the warmth of the building encompassing her and melting the ice that had started to accumulate on her plating. It was snowing thick and fast out there, wind howling along the rails and frost lining every window pane with its elegant patterns. The dining car rolled through and into the kitchen to put on the kettle, in dire need of a warm drink.

There was a soft thunk and a quiet curse from the lounge, and Dinah peered out into the other room across the hall to investigate. Buffy was standing there, holding her head, evidently having just wheeled gracefully into the doorframe. Dinah could just see Ashley in the corner, who was trying very hard not to laugh.

“Hi, girls. Y'all’re lucky you ain’t had to go out in that kinda weather. It’s cold enough to kill a freezer truck!” The dining car exclaimed, rolling into the lounge and giving Buffy a hug. “You alright, sugar?”

“Yeah, thanks darl. No thanks to Smokey over here.” She gave a pointed glance at Ashley, who was just beginning to regain herself from fits of giggles.

“Hah, not my fault you- ahahaha! - don’t look where you’re going!”

“Touche.” Buffy replied curtly, while shooting her girlfriend a grin. “Hey sweets, me ‘n’ Ash were gonna go out onto town for a drink or two. You in?”

Dinah thought about it for a moment, and then shook her head. “Thanks, hun, but I’ve had an awful long day an’ I could really do with some downtime, if that’s all right with you.”

Buffy smiled. “Don’t worry 'bout it. Get some rest, we’ll probably be back late anyways. Take care of yourself now.”

“I will.” Dinah hugged the buffet car again and the two other coaches headed for the door. The blast of cold air from outside made her shiver and she waved the two goodbye.

“Stay safe out there, y'hear?”

“Yessir!” came the cheeky response, and then they were gone. Dinah sighed softly and then perked up at the sound of a shrill whistle. It took her a moment to realise it was actually coming from the kitchen. “Ah! The tea!” She skated over, quickly taking the kettle off the boil and pouring hot water into a mug, stirring the drink and then tapping the teaspoon twice on the rim of the cup. Ahhhh, she’d been waiting all day for this.

—————–

Meanwhile, a very bedraggled Caboose made his way through about two feet of snow. It came up to his knees and he had long since stopped being able to feel his axles. Stupid diesels and their stupid pranks. He was the one that did the pranking. He couldn’t even believe that Greaseball’s gang had come up with that one by themselves.

Long story short, he was locked out of the freight shed, and his 'murder shack’ as he affectionately called it wasn’t in any way wind or even snow-proof. He was stuck out here freezing his wheels off, and he was NOT happy about it.

Suddenly, he caught a sound on the wind. Not the whistle of an engine, but of a boiling kettle. He tracked the sound, turning his head to just the vague silhouette of a familiar dining car through a nearby window, watching as she took a sip of what had sounded like tea. Damn, he could really do with something like that about now.

Giving a soft huff of indignation at his less-than-ideal situation, he begrudgingly shuffled around to the front of the building and gave s soft knock of the door. Starlight, he hated having to do this, but he couldn’t think of anyone else who might take pity on him. Greaseball was still absolutely livid about what CB did in the championship, as was Electra, so they were both no-go’s. Rusty had been cold-shouldering him for days now and he wondered how long the little steamer was going to hold a vendetta for. Dinah, though… he hadn’t really directly harmed her or anything, so maybe they were on slightly better terms…? Worth a shot. Dinah heard the knock and rolled her eyes, smiling. What had Ashley forgotten this time?

She opened the door and her smile dropped into a half-frown. “Oh. CB.”

“Uh, hey. Heh. Kinda cold out, isn’t it?”

“You could say that.” The snow was beginning to border blizzard-territory.

“I, uh, I don’t s'pose I could come in for a bit, maybe? I sorta got locked outta the freight shed and-”

Dinah just sighed. She couldn’t really say no, though she’d admittedly been mistrustful of CB after what happened in the races. She’d thought he was better than that.

“���come on then. But no funny business, ya hear?”

CB brightened considerably and trotted inside, shaking snow off his plating and stamping his feet in an attempt to warm up. It was nice in here. He didn’t think he’d ever visited the coaches’ shed before, not that he’d had any particular reason to in the past. He was surprised when Dinah went into the kitchen without another word, apparently happy to just give him free roam of the house. It touched the red caboose a little: he was rarely shown trust even in such a small way these days.

Dinah returned with the mug of tea she had just made, and held it out to CB. “Here, ya need it more'n I do, sugar.”

CB just blinked and looked at her.

“Well go on, it’s not poisoned!” Her voice held amusement and she offered him a small smile. He smiled in return and took the mug. “Thanks.”

“Come on, let’s go siddown and ya can tell me 'bout how ya got locked out o’ the freight shed, yeah?” The dining car offered, and CB nodded. It was better than standing in silence, at least.

The two made their way into the lounge.The room was lit by the hearthfire, the warm glow spilling out into even the darkest corners and illuminating everything in gold. CB and Dinah settled into the two armchairs either side of the fire and CB took a sip of tea before beginning to talk.

The caboose and the dining car conversed late into the night, the story of the freight shed prank being laughed at heartily by Dinah, who then told CB about how she’d accidentally served salt instead of sugar with a customer’s coffee earlier that day. After a couple hours, she decided that perhaps CB wasn’t so bad after all. He seemed amicable enough after two more cups of tea, and was actually beginning to look a little sleepy as the clock struck midnight. The conversation lapsed into a comfortable silence after a while and the two rolling stock sat and listened to the wind rattling the window panes and the soft crackle of the fire, happy in one another’s company.

—————-

Half an hour later, the front door opened slowly and in traipsed two slightly drunk, very cold coaches, holding onto each other for support and cycling between bouts of giggles and going 'SShhhssssshhhhsshshshhHH!!’ at each other loudly. They began to roll towards their room, but Ashley gave a soft gasp and pointed into the lounge. Buffy silently followed her point and her eyes fell upon CB’s red plating. She certainly hadn’t expected him to be here, much less for him to be fast asleep by a dying fire, along with Dinah, who was curled up in the armchair opposite. They were both completely out of it, clearly having had equally exhausting days, and the two other coaches just smiled and nodded at each other in a silent affirmation to leave the two sleeping ones be. Ashley and Buffy shortly followed suit, having tired themselves out a christmas party.

Snow fell thick and silent over Apollo Victoria, the wind dying down and letting the delicate flakes settle, covering the entire yard in a blanket of white. What seemed to have been forgotten by the four inhabitants of the little shed was that tomorrow was Christmas Day.

Way out on a mountain track, high above the clouds, there was a shimmer like stardust, and if one were looking they might have caught a glimpse of the polar express delivering presents to children and trains the world over.

It may have been cold out, but it was nice and warm inside.

[lazulia-fics]

Getting Dirty (Starlight Express fic, Flat-Top/Purse, NSFW)

Oh look, another entry in my “someone on Tumblr dared me to write a random rarepair fic” series. Here we have Flat-Top and Purse, enjoying a little dirty time.

It’s NSFW and tucked away behind a cut. Nothing kinky to speak of, no warnings beyond adult content. You can skip if you’re not comfortable reading it, I don’t mind in the least.

Tagging @thesodorcollective and @exdraghunt, since we were discussing this on Discord. Also @all-alone-in-the-moonlight, as I seem to recall us discussing a few HCs for this pairing. We never did come up with a ship name, did we? :P

Grime, dirt, muck. The air in this dive of a place was thick with it, a filthy mist of coal, brick, and gravel dust.

Purse shuddered. He could already feel it seeping into his plating, settling into his pristine seams and joints. He could taste it, could practically feel it dulling the shine of the glitter he wore on his face. He was used to the sterile cleanliness of the places electrics went to socialize, bright spotless clubs with gleaming walls and glowing lighting and filled with hushed, high-class conversation.

In this place, even the conversation was filthy. Purse passed a slate truck who was quite busy gyrating his pelvis for the benefit of his friends, evidently recounting last night’s conquest, and shouldered his way past two sloppy, inebriated coaches. One of them made a sound that could generously be interpreted as a whistle. Purse pretended not to hear it.

The money truck rolled with stoic grace all the way to the bar, debated whether to dust the stool, and sat down with a defeated sigh, trying to decide what to do with his arms before laying them on the bar top. He was already going to have to scrub himself raw after leaving this place. And take something for the headache pounding at his temples, thanks to the dirty, stuffy atmosphere of this place.

He’d barely had time to lock eyes with a stain on the bar top when a truck slid into the seat next to Purse. “Well well well. What do we have here?”

Purse gave him a bored, slightly disgusted look. A brick truck. He was as dirty as any truck here, covered in gravel dust and coal, a spare brick embedded in his helmet just in case anyone forgot what his job entailed, an insufferably cheeky look on his face as he looked Purse up and down. “Name’s Flat-Top. Come here often, gorgeous?”

Yes, actually. “I’m here on business.”

“Business, eh? Yeah, I got business too. We all got business.”

Purse didn’t bother with a reply. Somewhere in the distance, a truck released a string of profanity to rival Wrench the time she dropped a welding mask on her foot.

“We don’t get a lot of electrics down here,” Flat-Top remarked. Purse heard the scrape of a container on the bar top and glanced down to see Flat-Top pushing a drink in his direction. Purse turned his nose up at it. “Most of the time they think this place is too, uhh…”

“Dirty?” Purse coolly offered.

Flat-Top snorted and took a gulp of his own drink. “Dirty’s a word. Too much dignity to roll around with the freight, yeah? And you sure look like a truck with lots of… dignity.” He made a great show of looking up and down Purse’s body, making it clear he had another word in mind in place of ‘dignity’. “Yep, nothing breaks your composure, hm?”

Purse elegantly rolled his eyes, his attention momentarily drawn to two trucks dancing in a nearby corner, as though somehow they could hear the music above the roar of the crowd. Before long it was less dance and more of an obscene grind and soon a rather obscene kiss. Purse scoffed. Electrics would never get up to such behavior in a public area.  

Flat-Top loudly cleared his throat, catching Purse’s attention again. “Looks like you might be here a while. Maybe while you’re waitin’ for your business, you could--”

Flat-Top grabbed his arm. The gesture was somewhere between flirtatious and obnoxious. In either case, the hand left smudges on his plating. Purse shuddered. “Don’t touch me.”

“Hey, I jus’ thought--”

“Not here.”

A look of… disappointment, maybe, crossed Flat-Top’s eyes before he downed his drink and cocked his head toward the side of the bar. “There’s the alley--”

Purse was on his wheels before the brick truck could finish his direction.

The alley behind the freight bar was exactly what one would expect—weak, flickering lighting, punctuated by the occasional flashing lights in the far distance, the thick, grimy dust suspended in the spotlight of the overhead lamps.

Voices, some sober, most drunken, spilled from the bar and the nearby roads. Slightly more private than the bar, but still disgustingly public. Anyone could stumble upon them here.

And before Purse could analyze the locale any further, his back met the brick wall with a thump that made him wince in pain and surprise, Flat-Top pressing at his front with a brazen smirk.  

They didn’t kiss- Purse quickly whipped his head to the side before Flat-Top had a chance, barely missing the brick truck’s slight look of disappointment before he cut his losses and went for Purse’s neck instead, clumsily biting and licking at it. The low-key pain made Purse’s body shiver with something between lust and disgust, or maybe a healthy mix of both. The ragged brick wall scraped up his back as Flat-Top pawed at him, running his hands all over as though trying to sully him, pushing his fingers into sensitive joints, scrabbling at his pelvis and unlatching the plating with unsubtle fingers.

Purse sighed as his spike, already hard and twitching, landed in the brick truck’s hand. Flat-Top gave him a few rough strokes that turned Purse’s sigh into a ragged moan, the sound extending as Flat-Top went searching further. Purse expected rough fingers shoving inside him; the hesitation made him frown, tightening his grip on the grimy armour beneath his hand.

“S’okay if I…?”

“Yes, do it,” Purse huffed. Impatience made him snappish. He felt the press of thick fingers inside him, sending a jolt of sensation through his body that ended with another moan, just as he felt Flat-Top shuffle between their bodies and unlatch his own plating. The fingers left his body and Purse spread his thighs, as much as he could while stuck between brick and brick, and suddenly he found himself aided as Flat-Top grabbed his thighs, hoisting him up, slamming him against the wall with a satisfying rush that emptied his lungs of air. Purse was impressed; the brick truck was strong. And then Purse was impressed all over again as Flat-Top pushed inside him, stretching him to his limits, leaving him shuddering and gathering dust beneath his nails as he clawed at Flat-Top’s shoulders.

It was fast, and raw, and Purse wondered if his face looked more pained than pleasured as Flat-Top thrust into him, throwing his face into the money truck’s neck again, puffing loud, graceless groans into it. The sound was underscored by the steady rattle of chains Flat-Top wore around his body, along with the dull grind of metal and brick on ultra-polished plating.

Sex with Electra and the other Components was high art compared to this. Electrics had a reputation for indulging in enough kinks to make a seasoned sleeper car blush like a virgin. But this tryst in a dark alley scratched an itch Purse never realized he’d had. Getting fucked against a wall was quite tame compared to what he and Joule had gotten up to just that morning, but it wasn’t the act here that was kinky to him, so much as the situation.

“Mmm… so pretty. Don’t see many trucks with a body like yours… yep, you’re special… mm, so classy…”

In the cacophony of Flat-Top’s garbled moans and compliments and Purse’s own stuttered breaths, he almost missed the loud, drawn-out noise the brick truck released, followed by two quick thrusts and the sudden presence of dirty heat inside Purse’s body. He frowned, not expecting Flat-Top to be done quite so quickly, and the brick truck gave him a sheepish, but still satisfied grin as he peeled his face away from Purse’s neck.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Flat-Top snorted. He pulled out in a move that made Purse whimper, lowering him back to his wheels, and drew in a stabilizing breath before dropping to his knees in front of the money truck. “Whaddaya expect? Don’t worry, I got ya anyway…”

Purse rolled his eyes, then closed them in pleasure as the brick truck’s tongue made an enthusiastic swipe around the end of his spike. This was followed by a playful nibble of teeth and then a sloppy kiss followed by a sloppy suck, a completely uncoordinated effort that somehow worked really well, leaving Purse breathless and moaning.

The rattle of chains underscored Flat-Top’s soft grunts and sucking noises, a filthy combination of sounds that had Purse writhing against the wall until he felt the bricks dig grooves into his back plating. Before he could stop himself, he scrabbled to grip the edge of Flat-Top’s helmet (he was grabbing and not caressing, of course), following the bobbing motions and watching his spike disappearing into Flat-Top’s eager mouth until Purse found his breath again and groaned as he came, eyes fixed on Flat-Top’s throat as he swallowed until it was all done and pulled away with a smug look of triumph.

“Some business, eh?” Flat-Top smirked, chains jingling softly as he swiped his hand against his mouth.

A little shaky, Purse caught his breath and reached for his discarded plating. Flat-Top handed him the piece with something akin to reverence, the smirk slowly fading to something more subdued.

“Y’know… we don’t have to do it out here all the time. I have a shed. Bed and everything.”

“I know. You keep telling me.”

“So why we gotta meet here every time? You ashamed of me or something?”

“No! I--” Purse cut off his own indignant reply just as Flat-Top’s smirk returned.

“I’m kidding with you! Just sayin’, it’s not always comfortable out there. Pretty sure a rat almost crawled up my arse while I was busy.”

Purse tried and failed to keep from smiling. “I’m not here for anything more, Flat-Top. You know that.”

“Hey, s’okay. You don’t owe me an explanation. Sometimes you just need to get fucked in an alley, you know?”

Such wisdom. Purse’s tiny smile grew a bit. “If you say so.”

“I meant it, y’know. I got a bed. It’s a big one. Real comfortable. Never had an electric in there, but… you’re okay. So you know… yeah.”

“I suppose we’ll see, next time I have business here.”

Flat-Top nodded and shuffled on his wheels as though he expected something more, and tapped the brick in his helmet by way of a parting greeting before rolling back into the bar. Purse watched him go without a word, taking his time before thinking about rolling out of the alley himself.

Grime, dirt, muck. Now he was covered in it. Dirty inside and outside, filthy to the core, and wouldn’t Electra and the Components just be shocked to see him coming home in this condition. Too bad he wasn’t in the mood to shower any time soon.

Purse allowed himself a little grin, glancing down at the smudges and marks Flat-Top left on his body. His back still ached while other parts felt quite pleased. Flat-Top was right; sometimes, one just needed to get fucked in alley. But maybe next time, he wouldn’t mind seeing this bed.