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Helex’s shape loomed large and burning somewhere behind Kaon. The smaller mech had traced the outline of his frame nearly forty-five times in the past five minutes, a hulking, unblinking mass drawn out for him in sharp red lines and flaring heat signatures. The bright glare of Helex’s optics, yellow and round and never wavering, was… somewhat disquieting, even for Kaon.
The mech once called Crucible had been doing this for days now, ever since Tarn had swept off-base with Tesarus and Vos. This left Kaon in charge of their home on Messatine and alone with their newest recruit…
Helex. Smelter. Glutton. Grotesque mess-maker.
One second, Kaon would be alone, absorbed in his work; the next, as his coils hummed and traced the room, there Helex would be, smirking in the doorway or settled against the wall. Watching. Traced in red and haloed in a deep orange and yellow aura, he was monstrous and terrifying, so huge his frame dwarfed everything else in Kaon’s limited vision.
“I’m told it’s impolite to stare,” Kaon said to the silent bulk behind him. “I wouldn’t know, of course, not having optics -- but I can’t say I’m enjoying the feel of your eyes burning into my turbine.”
Helex shifted - not a subtle sound, not in the quiet of Messatine’s base; not when they two were the only ones in the whole slagging building at the moment. “Thought you could use the company,” the smelter said. “You’ve been keeping to yourself ever since Tarn took the others and left.”
“I don’t suppose you considered that was a deliberate move,” Kaon said. His voice crackled with a sharp electric warning, coils hissing hot static in the chilly air.
Helex laughed, low and deep, somewhere down in his boiler. “Thought you might be cold,” he said. “It’s chilly enough to freeze lugnuts. And you’re awfully small, and don’t have nearly enough armor for this kind of weather.” His vocal tone dropped an octave, heavy with intent. “Admit it - you could use a big, hot mech right about now.”
Kaon’s mouth twisted. The obvious flirtation made his tanks churn. Helex’s dogged pursuit had been a problem from the start, and while it was… admittedly a little flattering, it was grating on Kaon’s processor. You’re too new to try this, he thought. I’m Tarn’s right-hand. Have some respect.
And besides, his processor added, with no small amount of regret, I can’t frag you properly anyway.
“I’m fine, thank you,” he said instead. “You can return to your duties… whenever, really.”
“Don’t have much to do while we wait,” Helex said. Kaon’s coils flickered and caught Helex’s movement - he was closer now than he had been, standing instead of crouching. The gridlines that comprised the room’s interior showed he’d moved an alarming amount for a mech of his size. How he moved so silently when he was so large was a matter that plagued Kaon deep into his recharge hours. “I’d rather watch you work. You being the big boss an’ all… I can learn from you.”
“Lord Megatron is the ‘big boss,’ if you want to think of it that way,” Kaon said sharply. “Followed closely by Tarn. I’m nowhere on that very short list.”
“Well, I don’t see Megatron here, and Tarn’s off on his special mission with the others. So, that leaves you to order me around.” Kaon let his coils hum a bit early - he was convinced Helex’s voice was closer - and realized the smelter was only a few yards away, heat boiling off of his frame. Kaon didn’t need to see the creeping orange-red haze to feel the wave of heat that washed over him as Helex took another step. “You sure you don’t have something you want me to… handle ?” Helex asked, and his voice positively oozed slime.
Kaon pushed his chair out from his desk and leapt nimbly over it, coils hissing in warning. “Try cleaning up that pool of energon you left on the floor two days ago,” he snapped. “That would be a good start. And the rest of the mess you left, too, while you’re at it. I’m tired of tripping over optics and palm plates everywhere I go.”
Helex laughed again, colder than should have been possible for someone who ran so warm. “Yes, sir. Whatever you want, sir. ”
Kaon turned and stormed from the office, fists clenched tightly at his sides.
He definitely wasn’t retreating. He would never. He just couldn’t be around Helex for too long.
If he stuck around too long, he might actually be tempted to give in.
When they’d lost their previous Helex - another large mech, his chassis a barrel he could fill with acid - Kaon had hoped for a more… elegant replacement. Someone more like Tarn. Or maybe someone closer in size to Kaon. Kaon had always been the smallest of the D.J.D., and he hated it - hated how the other mechs manhandled him, hated how easily he was shuffled between them because he was little.
The only advantage to being small was that Tarn’s embrace was all-encompassing, and that, Kaon fully admitted, was very nice.
Tarn had presented Kaon with Crucible’s profile over the tune of Night Flight Over Iacon by Fermata - a favorite of Kaon’s, and one Tarn was always pleased to play when Kaon spent time in his quarters. “I think this one will do nicely,” Tarn had said, tapping the back of Kaon’s neck. They’d been settled on Tarn’s couch, as they always were when reviewing reports: Tarn leaning against the cushions and Kaon leaning against Tarn, the picture of intimate comfort.
Kaon let a plate shift out of the way, just under the back of his helm, exposing a port where Tarn could feed him the data. Without optics to view the information, Kaon needed to import it directly to see anything. They settled in together to wait, Kaon leaning snugly against Tarn’s chest, Tarn humming to the music in low, soothing tones.
This was Kaon’s favorite time: warmed by Tarn’s engines and his electric fireplace, hearing Tarn sing in a voice no one else would ever get to hear. Kaon reached back and curved his hand over Tarn’s scarred faceplate, feeling the jagged, ruined metal around his eye with tender fingers. Tarn’s field pulsed a pretty purple, his frame traced again and again in elegant blue lines. Kaon preferred cooler color tones for Tarn, rather than the default red; something about Tarn in red grid lines felt too harsh. Too much like a killer.
For the moment, Kaon didn’t want to see him as a killer. He wanted him as he was behind the mask: a classicist and commander, a leader and lover.
DATA TRANSFERRED. OPEN FILE?
Kaon sighed and let his hand drop, opening the profile.
“Hmm,” Kaon said, frowning as Crucible’s data loaded. “Another big one. Primus, he’s even bigger than the last one. Where do you find these giants?”
Tarn chuckled, lazily toying with Kaon’s turbine. “I know you were hoping for someone more comparable in size, but it’s hard to beat the intimidation factor of a giant smelter.”
“Touche.” Kaon let the data whirl through his processor, sorting, notating, assigning. “Is there a single picture of this glitch where he doesn’t have his tongue hanging out of his mouth?” he asked, a disapproving frown marring his faceplates.
“He has a habit of eating things. Body parts too, I hear. He has a special fondness for brain modules.” Tarn pressed the pads of his fingers to the ball of Kaon’s coil, rubbing in slow, teasing circles. “What do you think?”
Kaon shivered, wanting to protest - but his system had other ideas pulling to the fore. No doubt that was Tarn’s intention. “Well, if you wanted grotesque, you’ve certainly found it,” he said, hissing as Tarn’s grip grew firmer. “But if you want my honest opinion - ”
“Mm… how honest?” Tarn’s face bumped against Kaon’s audial, his teeth nipping tiny dents into the metal.
Kaon gave another minute shiver, gripping Tarn’s thigh as his turbine whirred up a few levels. Sparks cascaded from his coils, landing and leaving bright sparks of pain in their wake. “Let’s just say he lacks the elegance I expect from our crew.”
Kaon felt Tarn’s mouth draw back into a dark smile. “They can’t all be like us , Kaon,” he murmured, a hot whisper that shot straight to Kaon’s spark. “A blunt instrument has its uses just as much as a laser scalpel.”
“Hnn - ” Kaon arched off the couch, squeezing Tarn’s thigh for leverage. “Ohh - not fair - ”
“Just say yes ,” Tarn breathed, in the Voice that so many feared, that Kaon so desperately loved. “You know I wouldn’t steer us wrong.”
Tarn’s hand slipped down to Kaon’s panel, tracing delicate, feather-light circles over the rapidly heating metal. Kaon shuddered and let off a second shower of sparks, shaking off his building overcharge. “You’re seducing me into accepting this, aren’t you?” he said with a grin. “You knew I wouldn’t like him, so you planned to tease me into getting your way.”
“Me?” Tarn said, with practiced innocence. “Your commander? Why, Kaon, I would never. ”
Kaon gave a laugh that sounded like static, coils flickering - enough to give a sharp shock, but not enough to do serious harm. It was a real concern even for Tarn; despite the tank’s large bulk, Kaon at full power could still kill him. It was the reason these little preludes were Kaon’s favorite: he couldn’t actually overload on Tarn. He let Tarn’s Voice frag him instead, from a distance, aching the whole time to be touched, to be full.
Kaon wanted so badly to be fragged senseless by a real spike for once.
“Fine,” he said, turning over to straddle Tarn’s lap. “I trust your judgment. But I don’t have to like him.”
“No,” Tarn breathed, a gust of air brushing over Kaon’s lips. “You don’t have to like him, sweetspark. You just have to be nice. ”
That word, nice - spoken like a caress, like a languid thrust into an aching valve - was all Kaon could focus on, all he could remember, for a time.
At least until Helex showed up.
Helex had liked Kaon immediately.
Kaon had not returned the favor.
“Kaon!” Helex had said, upon introduction. “You’re so much smaller than I pictured! I’ve read up on the mathematical equations you’ve invented to manage the List, it’s some really impressive stuff - ”
“Hmm.” Kaon tilted his head, letting his coils pulse in constant intervals so he could look the smelter over. Red gridlines caught upon a massive frame - one of the biggest Kaon had ever seen. Slowly, a more detailed image began to form: two sets of arms, one with hands big enough to crush Kaon into a little ball; a cavernous smelter Kaon could probably sleep in if he wished; shoulder spikes and a helm literally the same size as Kaon’s turbine, if not larger. His face glowed with jagged lines of orange-yellow light, shadows shaping a surprisingly small nose and a smirking mouth.
Without his tongue hanging out of his mouth, he was almost classically handsome, like Tarn - just bigger.
A lot bigger.
The image was spoiled by the flash cooling energon sitting in unpleasant splatters over the mech’s torso - a filthy trophy of his final test before being brought on as a member of the DJD. Kaon had never known a mech to arrive on-base without removing such markings first. “Did you bother with a shower at all before you came to us?”
“This?” Helex looked down, where the helm of a victim was smashed brutally against the door of his smelter. “Oh, heh, haven’t had the time, Tarn just brought me from my test - ”
Kaon’s frown deepened.
“Oh, sorry, how rude of me,” Helex said. He swiped a finger down the front of his chest and offered it to Kaon. “Want a taste?”
“No!” Kaon was so startled he shot electricity into the ceiling. “Primus, Helex, we’re not animals !”
“Really?” Helex popped a fragment of the shattered helm into his mouth. “From where I’m sitting, we’re maybe three or four degrees removed. We’ve got purpose, we’ve got intellect, we’ve got reason - but when it’s time to decimate a defector, well.” The smelter shrugged all four arms at once. “Go wild, I suppose.”
“Savage is one thing,” Kaon said, sniffing. “Grotesque is another.” He turned on his heel, clicking away from Helex. “I’ll give you this, at least; you’re very enthusiastic.”
“Yes, sir,” Helex said. His grin was wide enough to disrupt Kaon’s sensornet, glowing a sickly yellow shade as it formed in Kaon’s processor. He followed after Kaon without an invitation, feet clanging heavily against the floor. “Maybe if you’ve got some time we could look at the List together and talk about the equations you - ”
“No.” He shouldn’t have said it so flatly; Kaon could admit that now. He’d only made it worse when he added, “I don’t need your help.”
Helex’s steps slowed, his grin shrinking by millimeters. “Oh,” he said. “See, since we’re working together, I’d kind of hoped we’d be a little friendlier. You know?”
Kaon didn’t bother to dignify that with a response. He’d get friendly when he decided to, and not a moment sooner. New recruits so often lost the spark they needed for this work, after all - or died before a real bond could form.
“Maybe a lot friendlier,” Helex pressed.
Kaon would have rolled his optics if he’d had any. “I’m not in need of friends, thanks.”
Helex paused. The weight of it felt… significant. Like the stillness in the air before the first strike of lightning. “I didn’t say anything about friends,” he said at last. “I said friendly. ”
Kaon’s frown deepened. “We’re having an argument over semantics now? Not the best way to start your tenure as a member of the D.J.D., but to each their own, I suppose.”
Kaon’s sensornet lit up as Helex set a huge, three-fingered hand on the ball of Kaon’s coil, squeezing tight and hot around it. The chair’s entire frame shuddered at the sensation, protocols he’d kept reserved for Tarn flickering to life. Oh no, we can’t - not this, I can’t…! He shut them down with a vent of horror, shooting a warning volt into Helex’s hand.
Helex didn’t even flinch.
“You’re so cute and little,” Helex said, right into Kaon’s audial. “I got a thing for little mechs. And those eyeholes …”
Kaon wrenched himself out of Helex’s grip right as his fans kicked on, turbine whirring up to torture-level speeds. His systems glitched out in confusion, anger and arousal struggling to beat the other to the fore. “Don’t you dare touch me again,” he snarled. “You have no right - ”
Helex chuckled, lifting all four hands in a sign of peace. “Touchy,” he said. “Alright, fine. I’ll lay off. But hey, Kaon?”
“What?” Kaon spat, defensively rubbing his violated coil.
Helex had the nerve to wink. “I never met a code I couldn’t crack,” he said.
Kaon believed him - by Vector Sigma, he did. If he’d been a different mech, had a different ability, he’d have been all over the huge smelter in a nanoklik. He had a thing for big mechs, after all.
But it was impossible; he was Amp, and everything about him precluded the possibility of taking on a partner who wasn’t Tarn. It would be a death sentence, even for a bigger mech, to touch him.
He could have told Helex this. He could have explained himself, presented his arguments in a calm, logical fashion. It’s what Tarn would have expected and hoped for from his second-in-command.
“Over my dead, rusted husk,” he said instead, filling the words with all the venom he could muster.
Helex merely smirked, optics locked on Kaon’s empty sockets. “Sure,” he said, with a smile that was almost pitying. “That’s what they all say.”
Helex had not, despite Kaon’s best hopes, given up on him. It had been over six orbital cycles since Helex had joined them and yet the smelter was as determined as ever to have Kaon in every possible debasing manner. He was not shy about letting Kaon know it, either - especially now that they were alone on base.
Kaon thought sometimes about finally explaining why he couldn’t - shouldn’t - but Helex’s pursuit was so irritating that Kaon didn’t particularly want to give him that courtesy. Let him fall a peg or two and see where that got him. Perhaps if his pride was hurt, he would finally focus his attention elsewhere.
That didn’t stop Kaon from self-servicing and thinking about him sometimes: awash with shame and guilt and arousal, burying fingers deep into his valve, imagining an impossibly huge, hot spike there instead.
He’d seen Helex’s spike once, entirely by accident. Surprise inspections for new recruits were not at all uncommon, and while Tarn was out once Kaon had had the ill-timed idea to spring one onto Helex. Helex had been particularly aggressive that week, even going so far as to pin Kaon to the wall at one point, tilting his chin up with one giant finger - c’mon, little sparkler, it’ll be fun, I promise I’ll treat you so nice…
This was Kaon’s revenge. Or at least, it was supposed to be.
When he’d snapped Helex’s door open he’d been confronted by an image he couldn’t quite resolve. Helex had more arms and hands than Kaon was used to following, and the empty, optic-less helm the smelter held up to his mouth confused the issue further. Kaon’s processor struggled to compose an image that made any kind of sense, until it outlined Helex’s thick spike in brilliant shades of pink.
The image crystalized into sharp, crisp lines, and Kaon saw at last what Helex was busy doing.
The helm in Helex’s smaller hand bore an unsettling resemblance to Kaon’s. Kaon couldn’t remember which traitor it had belonged to, and trying to ID it was nearly impossible with the amount of oral lubricant and bite marks it now bore. Helex’s tongue was buried deep in one of its empty sockets, cranial fluid dangling in crystalline strings between the helm and Helex’s mouth. One of the bigger hands had all three fat fingers wrapped around the biggest spike Kaon had personally ever beheld: almost as thick as one of Kaon’s legs, and roughly the length of his thigh. It glowed a pulsing red now, sizzling with heat, transfluid dripping from the tip and dropping onto the cold berth with a hiss.
Kaon stood frozen for a moment, framed in Helex’s habsuite door. Helex also froze, but only for a nanoklik. He grinned and shifted his massive bulk to face Kaon directly, spreading his legs wide and letting his stiff spike stand free and unhindered for Kaon’s inspection. Not the kind of inspection I’d intended…
“Funny seeing you here,” Helex said, teasing the head of his spike with one large finger. “I was just thinking about you.”
The implication washed over Kaon and filled him with humiliation and painful arousal, a rush of lubricant pooling against his panel. “I - I didn’t - I’m not here to - ”
“You can come if you want,” Helex said. His voice was low and tinged with static, dangerous and hungry. “I don’t mind at all.”
Kaon thought of Tarn, of the empty ache deep in his valve, and made a tiny, agonized sound.
Helex must have heard it, because he vented sharply and shifted on the berth, tossing the empty helm aside and stroking his spike with one of the smaller hands, so Kaon could still see. “Come on,” he said, voxcorder cracking with excitement. “You know you want to…”
Oh, Kaon hated him, he hated him so very much - because the smelter was fragging right , and Kaon still couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
“Comm me when you’re finished,” he said, whirling around before he could change his mind. “I came for an inspection. I expect you’ll have that mess cleaned up by the time I return.”
“Would be a lot easier if you just stayed to help me out…” Helex called - but Kaon slammed Helex’s door closed with one sharp command, all but running to his own quarters.
That was the first time he’d self-serviced to the thought of Helex; but there were others that followed, and continued to follow, over and over again as the orns dragged onwards. He hadn’t told Tarn about the incident, but he suspected Tarn knew all the same - especially when Tarn chose to leave Helex on Messatine when he might have been more useful proving his mettle on this recon mission.
Kaon cursed Tarn quietly, and wondered why his commander thought it was a good idea for him to even attempt fragging another mech. He was electric, he could and had killed partners in the past; and surely Tarn didn’t want to deal with that sort of hassle. They’d had a hard enough time finding someone to take the old Helex’s place.
Kaon shoved the thought to the back of his processor and tried to focus on his work, ignoring the constant sense of Helex right on his heels.
He was in Kaon’s room when Kaon woke up.
The first lazy flicker of his coils suddenly lit up his sensornet with the image of Helex: blaring orange and yellow light over a chaotic tangle of red lines, staring unblinking at the berth where Kaon recharged. Kaon jerked awake with a screech, coils leaping to full voltage. “What are you doing ?” Kaon hissed, lifting his hands in front of him.
“Heating your room,” Helex said. “It was cold in here, and the door was open.”
There wasn’t even a trace of apology in his tone. Kaon seethed, electric rage whirling from the base of his struts to the crest of his helm. Yes, fine, it was a lot warmer in his room, which was nice - but newcomers couldn’t just invade like this. It wasn’t right. It broke every unspoken rule in the D.J.D. playbook: newbies left their doors open for examination at any time. Newbies shared everything as requested of them. And newbies did not violate the seniors’ spaces without a damn good reason.
“You can’t just walk in, ” Kaon said, still poised and ready to fire as many volts into that giant frame as he could manage. “It’s not done - ”
“Yeah? Vos walks in on me all the time,” Helex replied. His frame gave an audible creak as he moved - he was standing, stretching, subtly shifting closer. “ You walk in on me all the time.”
Kaon’s tanks flipped as his processor started replaying the memory files of the inspection gone wrong. He shut them down and shunted them to the side. “You’re new, ” Kaon said with disdain. “When you prove yourself, you’ll have the right to complain, and to enter a senior officer’s rooms at will. Until then - ”
Helex had the nerve to yawn, stretching out one giant hand. Kaon tracked the other three as they shifted and crossed. Those little arms were an ldd addition...the better to grip unwary mechs with, Kaon supposed, or to hold his disgustingly huge spike while cradling an old, sparked out helm in a different hand, with his tongue sunk in so deep -
Kaon’s systems prickled with heat, a sickening twinge of want pinging in his valve. No - no, we don’t want him, we don’t want this, no! Kaon stumbled and collapsed back onto the berth, struggling to fight a wave of nausea and arousal.
“Careful, little sparkler,” Helex said. His smaller hands - still big to Kaon, deliciously so - closed over Kaon’s arms, righting him. “You feeling sick? Want me to - ”
“Get out,” Kaon snarled, pointing towards his door.
“Alright, fine, was just trying to - “
“Get. Out. ”
Helex frowned. For a moment, Kaon thought he wasn’t going to leave; that he’d pin him to the berth and frag him into compliance, tearing his valve and dragging deadly charge out of him. Maybe, if Kaon was honest, that was what he was hoping for.
But Helex finally stood down and tromped out the door, taking his warmth and the scent of burnt energon with him.
Something was amiss with the List.
Kaon had spent the better part of the morning cursing his algorithm, watching as names rearranged themselves in random order before his very sockets. Data leapt from the prison of Kaon’s carefully constructed equations and made a break for any exit it could find, turning every neatly ordered item on his list into a parody of disaster.
Kaon was near to frying the entire thing and starting over. He longed for Tarn’s soothing voice, whispering promises that all would be well - coaxing a solution from him with all the elegance and grace of a flier. He’d thought about comming Tarn more than once, but Tarn had expressly forbidden comms on this mission unless something of a truly disastrous nature occurred. He needed stealth and swiftness to catch Depthray. Kaon couldn’t ruin that for him, not when they were finally so close…
He would have to solve this one on his own.
Shrieking, Kaon fired off his coils, sending bolts of fury crackling up the walls and ceiling.
“Must be a hell of a problem to piss you off that bad,” said Helex, from right above Kaon’s head.
Kaon jerked upright, panic flooding his lines. He hadn’t even heard Helex enter - how was that possible, the mech was enormous! He made to scramble away, but not before Helex caught him with two of his arms and pulled him up to his boiling chest.
“Aww, it’s ok,” he cooed, petting Kaon’s head with one free hand. “Let me see if I can help.”
Kaon froze, pressed close against Helex for the first time. He was - oh, he was so warm. And huge. One three-fingered hand gripped his aft in a lewd approximation of a chair, the other wrapping around his waist. It was like being hugged by a much larger, much warmer Tarn, and despite the whine of protest that rose up out of Kaon’s mouth, he couldn’t quite bring himself to squirm away.
If he couldn’t have the interface he wanted, maybe he could settle for this.
He begrudgingly stopped struggling, curling up against the smelter and letting a comforting wave of heat wash over him.
Helex settled down by the console, smaller hands setting to work on Kaon’s precious list. “Wow,” he said. “This is quite a mess. Wonder what happened...”
“I’ve been asking the same question myself,” Kaon growled. The cable connecting him to the dataport showed Helex’s access code, then asked Kaon’s permission to proceed. Kaon hesitated, but nothing else had worked so far…
ACCESS GRANTED.
“I’ve tried my usual resets, tweaked the code on the equations, attempted to restore an earlier version… nothing,” Kaon said. “Good luck achieving anything.”
“Oh, you might be surprised.” Helex started typing, a frown of concentration shifting the now-pinkish grid lines that made up his face. Kaon frowned in turn at the color shift. He’d not commanded that one; it had been an automatic change, a shift from enemy to cautious ally. Curious…
“You can see what I’m doing, right?” Helex asked, without looking at Kaon. The shift in focus was a welcome relief. “With the data port thing?”
“Yes, I’m tracking everything you do, so don’t get any clever ideas.”
Helex laughed, throwing off a wave of warmth. The smell of roasting metal and curdled energon wafted out with it. “What exactly do you expect me to do? I’m not a spy.”
“I certainly hope not,” Kaon said. “We have no mercy for any spies who dare attempt to come among our ranks.”
“Oh, I know. I heard about what you did to that Autobot that tried to get in. Good thing you caught him before he passed all Tarn’s tests.”
“Yes…” Kaon trailed off, disinterested, watching instead as Helex accessed the code’s tables and began to work. “Hmm. Your experience with code appears stronger than I’d expected.”
Helex cast him a quizzical look. “Tarn said you’d read my profile.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t necessarily trust some words on a datapad,” Kaon said. He was beginning to feel quite relaxed now, even with the List still malfunctioning. It was… nice being this warm. Nice being held. Nice having a big hand running hot against his panel…
Kaon jerked in Helex’s grip. No, absolutely not, he couldn’t get any ideas - not when he was so dangerous, not when Tarn wasn’t here, not with this mech . He squirmed until his knees were curled close to his turbine, lifting his pelvic plates away from Helex’s palm and fingers.
“Now this is interesting,” Helex said. If he’d noticed Kaon moving, he made no particular sign. “This code doesn’t look like the rest. Did you write this bit?”
Kaon felt a cold stab of fear sinking into his generator. “No… that doesn’t look like any code I’d ever write. It doesn’t even look Decepticon.”
“No,” Helex agreed. “It definitely doesn’t. It looks like someone trying to fake Decepticon code and doing a bad job.”
“Prowl,” Kaon said flatly, glaring at the data as though he could actually see it. “Helex, we need to get that out of there fast . I’m not particularly concerned if Prowl knows who we’re out to chase, but this is undoubtedly an opening salvo towards other attempts - ”
“Already on it, boss.” Helex’s smaller hands moved at top speed, adjusting, editing, isolating the hack. Kaon opened his mouth to make a suggestion, but Helex was already moving to do it. It was… actually quite impressive. Kaon let his posture relax, content to watch Helex work as the minutes ticked by.
He was pretty good at this, for a rude, lascivious smelter.
“Primus, that was harder than it should have been,” Helex said. “But that should do the trick. Firewalls are back up, code is locked down, and everything should be secure. We’ll need to figure out how the frag it got there in the first place, but the situation’s handled, at least. Take a look.”
Kaon sat up, refreshing the data feed. The List reloaded in perfect order, exactly as he would have ordered it himself: equations and data in place, code now unharmed.
“Hmm. Nice work.” It was the only praise Kaon could bring himself to give, and it was begrudging at best. Privately, Kaon made a note to let Tarn know of Helex’s excellent performance when he returned - but he’d swear Tarn to secrecy. If Helex thought he’d gained Kaon’s good opinion…
Well, Kaon would probably wake up with him in his berth next time, instead of just standing near it.
“I think that’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me,” Helex said. He was grinning again, huge and toothy and focused entirely on Kaon.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Kaon replied, letting his coils give a warning flare.
Helex didn’t flinch away. “You know that doesn’t do anything, right?”
“Hmm?” Kaon was only half-heeding Helex now, his attention turned back to the now-functioning List. “What doesn’t?”
“The coils. My frame’s built a little different to handle the smelter; I can take most of your voltage. I mean, you could probably still hurt me if you really tried, but it’d be tough.”
Kaon paused mid-movement, his processor stalling over the words. His coils… didn’t hurt Helex? Couldn’t hurt him? Did that mean -
No. No, he was not going there, because if he went there, he would never come back, and Primus he did not want to lower himself to fragging a cannibal smelter, he really didn’t, he really -
Really, sort of did.
He was suddenly aware of Helex’s hands, huge and curved around him still, hot fingers making passes over his panel in suspiciously regular intervals. The touch was feather-light at first, but growing firmer with each new attempt, with every second that Kaon didn’t move. A warning flashed, bright and excited on his HUD display: INTERFACE PROTOCOLS INITIATING. CONTINUE?
Kaon’s coils crackled, and he wrenched himself out of Helex’s grip, jumping to the floor. “You made mention of needing to find the source of the code,” he snapped, skittering away from Helex’s large hand as it made a move towards him. “Do that. I want a full report before Tarn returns. Do I make myself clear?”
Helex made a sound, an almost animal snarl - but he didn’t move to grab for Kaon again. “Yes, sir, ” he hissed. “Whatever you want, sir. ”
Kaon turned on his heel and ran, and this time, he could definitely admit he was retreating.
He and Tarn had never been exclusive. It was… odd to think of it that way, but it was true. Tarn had been clear from the beginning that he would come running whenever Megatron called, and while Kaon was important to him - extremely important, even - Megatron was both leader and lover, and his commands would always take precedence.
As such, Tarn had agreed that Kaon was free to seek other partners if he wished. It was an easy bargain to make at the time, for who else could frag Kaon safely? It wasn’t as though electricity-resistant mechs were easy to come by. The very thing that made Kaon dangerous also made him untouchable, and that, Kaon supposed, was another reason Tarn hadn’t been concerned about another mech encroaching on their relationship.
This new revelation presented… complications.
Kaon had tried having partners, before. Before Tarn, before the DJD, back when he was newly forged. He’d convinced himself he could restrain the voltage he gave off, but his first interface partner had nearly died when Kaon overloaded, and Kaon had been terrified to try again ever since.
False spikes could work in a pinch, but they had to be made of the right material. Some of them tended to melt when he fragged them - a humiliating end to an otherwise excellent evening. Once, one had melted inside him when Tarn used the Voice to particular effect, and they’d had to spend the rest of the night scrubbing melted plastic out of his valve. Thank Primus Tarn kept that embarrassing story to himself… he’d never hear the end of it from the rest of the team if they knew.
He’d ultimately settled on self-servicing as the best tactic when Tarn was not interested or unavailable, which was becoming an increasingly frequent occurrence. Kaon had spent too many lonely nights curled up on his cold berth, working his valve with three fingers and his node with his other hand, until overload sent his coils blasting into the ceiling or the wall.
Nothing could replicate what he remembered a spike feeling like, though. He craved the burn and ache of being stuffed full, the intimacy of direct, physical contact with a partner. Without even Tarn’s foreplay to sustain him, he was beginning to get downright angry about it all.
Helex was not the partner Kaon had pictured having. He lacked elegance and class, he was crude and disgusting, he enjoyed licking and eating just about anything he ever encountered - but Kaon had taken in one quick flicker of his spike, and he’d wanted it.
Oh, who was he kidding… he’d wanted it before he’d even seen it. The second he’d seen how huge Helex was, the instant Helex had curled a hand around his coil without fear, he’d craved him. He’d convinced himself it wasn’t possible, that there was no way, that their frames wouldn’t even allow it…
But now he knew that it was possible, and he was fast running out of both reason and willpower to keep refusing.
He lay on his cold berth, revved up and furious, aching for heat and touch and something more than his cold room on Messatine. He wished again that Tarn was home to tide him over, to drive the restless arousal out of his lines so he could focus again on what mattered. But here he was, alone and unbearably overcharged, cringing at the betrayal of his own frame.
He sighed, gave up, and rolled onto his back, parting his legs. He fingered his turbine slowly and tried to think of Tarn, of big, hot hands caressing him, squeezing tightly around the ball of his coils and stroking…
That isn’t Tarn you’re thinking of.
He gave a small electric flicker of interest, his turbine revving up a level. His panel was warm when he reached down to stroke it, and he could feel lubricant already leaking at the seams. He gritted his dentae, rutting up into his own touch. Why had he been made to want interfacing so badly, when his frame was uniquely positioned not to be able to have it? It was some twisted joke cast upon him by Primus himself, probably. That would be his luck. Hissing, he pressed harder against his panel, feeling a sharp bite of electricity as the panel snapped back. Sticky lubricant instantly stained his fingers, hot against the chill air in his habsuite. He grunted and shoved two fingers in without ceremony. It stung, but not enough, not as much as Kaon wished it did. He shoved his digits inside himself at a vicious pace, even going for his spike in desperation for harder, hotter, more. He preferred node and valve play, but he would take what he could get to be rid of this damnable overcharge that would not go away...
“You’re going about that all wrong.”
Kaon sparked in surprise, whipping his helm in the direction of the voice. Caught up in his own lust, he hadn’t heard Helex lumbering towards his door - hadn’t even heard the door ping. “Can’t you leave me alone for five kliks? ” he snarled, twisting his hips away from Helex’s general shape.
Helex took a few steps in, his big feet thumping on the metal floor. “Apparently not, if this is what you get up to,” he said. “Looks like I got you all revved up. Poor sparkler. You know that’s better with a partner, right?”
“Maybe for you,” Kaon said, curling still further into his berth. He wanted the charge in his frame to dissipate, but it held, his spark throbbing painfully behind the rotor in his chest. “Most mechs can’t handle the coils. Do you mind? I’d like to finish.”
“No,” Helex said. His voice had gotten very low and rough, rippling with static. “I don’t mind at all.” His four hands all slammed down on the berth at once, pinning Kaon in place. Kaon jumped and pressed a hand against the smelter door, feeling rolling waves of heat against his palm. “You’re not gonna hurt me , Kaon,” Helex crooned. “Remember what I said this afternoon? I can take the heat.”
“N- oh !” Helex’s tongue lapped at the side of Kaon’s helm, a smaller hand seizing Kaon’s unguarded spike and teasing the head in rhythmic circles. Kaon jerked upwards, venting hard, his turbine screaming as his coils burst with charge.
“You’ve got such pretty equipment,” Helex growled. “Your biolights are so bright. Is that just the black, or does the generator have something to do with it?”
Kaon squirmed, shrieking in surprise as Helex bit down on the raised crest of his helm. “Ah - Helex - don’t - ”
“Shhh… it’s ok, I’m gonna take real good care of you,” Helex said, nibbling at the edges of Kaon’s audials. Like Tarn does. But harder. Bigger. Rougher. “It’s obvious you need it.”
Kaon whined, hips jerking up into Helex’s hand. His legs parted wider before he could think to stop them, and another long, searching lick sent Kaon quivering. “You’re - you’re disgusting,” he said over screaming fans. “Stop licking me - ”
“Aww, but you make such cute noises when I do it,” Helex said. He bent and ran his glossa around the thick rim of Kaon’s turbine, earning him a bright flicker of charge from Kaon’s towering coils. “And you taste so nice, too… bet your valve’s gonna be delicious.”
Oh no, oh no, that slavering tongue making a mess of Kaon’s valve, lapping at his lubricants, sucking on his node… His coils positively burst, charge flickering between them. I don’t want it, I want it, oh Primus it sounds so good…
“I could kill you,” Kaon vented, finally, forcing the words over the stuttering of his voxcorder.
Helex made a derisive noise. “Not likely,” he said. “I’m built for it. Almost like I’m made for you, huh, sparkler?” He had the nerve to wink, the glitch, still rubbing Kaon’s spike in perfect, delicious circles.
“I don’t like mess either,” Kaon snapped. “And you’re nothing but mess.”
Helex laughed. “Come on, Kaon. Live a little.” His bigger hand cupped Kaon by the aft and lifted him up, tilting the tinier mech backward. He leaned in close to Kaon’s equipment and inhaled deeply. “Delicious,” Helex said, pressing his nose directly against the hot, soaked valve. He bumped Kaon’s node, and Kaon gave a quavering cry, pushing down onto Helex’s face.
“Oh, you wanna sit? Not a bad idea.” Helex chuckled, shifting his grip. “That’s funny… a chair sitting on a smelter.”
“What are you talking about?” Kaon said, even as he ground down onto Helex’s helm. Heated ridges met his node and rubbed against it, sending waves of delicious friction up his shaking frame. “Unnn, Pits, I… I feel so good… ”
“I’d say ‘I told you so,’ but that’s kind of a mood-killer, isn’t it?” Helex said. He took hold of Kaon’s back and hips and laid down, bringing Kaon with him. For a second Kaon was disoriented, pulled from berth to a sitting position, knees on either side of Helex’s helm -
Then Helex pressed him down to sit directly on his mouth, flicking the tip of his glossa against Kaon’s pulsing node.
Kaon shrieked, coils spitting charge over his entire frame. The slickness of the glossa overrode what little willpower Kaon had left. Helex had awoken in him instead a ferocious appetite, a monstrous hunger that consumed all reason - or perhaps it had always been there, and Helex was merely the first who could let it out.
Kaon found handholds on either side of Helex’s helm and ground himself down against the smelter’s mouth, jerking forward and back, forward and back, coils glowing brighter and brighter. If only he could be full, this would be perfect…
Helex caught Kaon by the waist and lifted him up and off. Kaon made an angry, staticky noise, slamming himself back down onto Helex’s mouth despite the shrieking protest of his frame. Helex laughed and raised him higher this time, lifting Kaon off the berth and all the way into the air. “Relax, sweetspark,” he said. “I’m gonna take care of you. Just gotta reposition you so I can… yeah, there we go…”
Kaon had no idea what Helex was doing for a moment. His processor spun with brilliant colors: purple, blue, yellow, red, auras and grid lines and flares of electric light wherever his coils happened to shoot. All he knew was that he wanted. He was rabid, like an animal, desperate to frag and be fragged: desperate to be touched. When Helex brought him down onto his face again, Kaon almost wept with relief.
Instead, he sobbed out a delirious cry as Helex’s tongue slithered its slow, teasing way into his valve.
::There’s a good mech,:: Helex crooned over comm. ::See? I told you I’d take care of you. Come on, I’m gonna tongue-frag you to the Afterspark and back.::
Yes, yes, that sounded good, that sounded amazing. Kaon vented hard and sank down with all his might onto Helex’s tongue, shuddering as it began to thrust steadily in and out. It was thick and wet and moved fluidly, seeking every sensor in Kaon’s valve lining; tasting and toying with every single one it found until Kaon was helplessly crying out, bouncing in time to the rhythm of Helex’s movements.
Then Helex took hold of the coils and squeezed.
Kaon convulsed, an ecstatic howl he barely recognized as his own torn from his vocalizer. Helex’s big hands stroked the electric chair’s coils, his fat tongue slithering in and out of Kaon’s dripping valve, the smaller hands teasing Kaon’s spike -
“ -g - g - g onna hurt you - ” Kaon protested weakly, shuddering as every sensor in his frame lit up with charge.
“Nuh-uh,” Helex promised, flicking his tongue. Kaon groaned and jerked, pelvic plating crashing into Helex’s helm. ::Can take the heat.::
Kaon’s valve clenched, and Helex made an unearthly noise, like a boiler where something had gone catastrophically wrong. It was a deep, hungry rumble that shook every inch of Kaon’s frame, only adding to the combination of sensations about to overwhelm him.
Helex’s tongue shoved so deep it hit Kaon’s ceiling node; and Kaon gave in, finally, shrieking as overload washed over him. Electric light tore from his coils, shooting out and sizzling all over Helex’s bigger hands. For a moment, light surrounded them both in beautiful, endless arcs, dancing over Helex’s frame as well as Kaon’s; they were illuminated like Primes emerging from the Well, heavenly, endless, perfect.
Then it was over, and Kaon came crashing down hard , simultaneous waves of relief and humiliation washing over him.
>
“Frag,” Helex said, when he’d retracted his tongue. “You’re gorgeous. I wanna watch you do that again.”
Again? Kaon hadn’t even had a nanoklik to process the first round. He waved a hand, a vague endeavor to push Helex back. “I need - please - give me time to - ”
He ought to have known better. Orn after orn after orn, Helex had persisted despite hearing the word ‘no’ at every turn; Kaon begging for respite wasn’t going to stop him now. Even as Kaon sagged atop the bigger mech, Helex flipped him over and pinned him beneath his much bulkier frame, holding the electric chair down with his second arms.
“How deep do those eyeholes go?” Helex asked. His fans roared so loudly that Kaon almost didn’t hear him. “Do you think I can get your brain module if I go deep enough?”
Before Kaon could choke out a reply, Helex’s tongue slithered around the edge of the left hole where his optic should have been, teasing what was left of its ridge. Kaon jolted, slamming into Helex’s hot torso, as his sensornet lit up again with sensation he hated that he loved.
“NNNN - ” he choked out, starting to wrench his helm away.
“Ah-ah. Bad boy. Thtay.” The words must have been hard to get out as even more of Helex’s tongue slid through Kaon’s empty socket. He must have forgotten he could comm. Sensitive wiring that had not been used in lifetimes leaped to attention, Kaon’s helm inundated with sensory data he could barely process. Did it hurt? Did it feel good? He couldn’t tell anymore; his charge hadn't dissipated yet, and every touch felt both heavenly and hellish. Kaon’s frame shook, coils humming to life. Primus, he hated himself, hated his partner, hated his frame for betraying him like this.
But, by the Pit, being touched was so fragging good...
A big hand closed over his right coil and stroked it lovingly, ignoring the sharp shock of electricity. Helex’s tongue reached the back of Kaon’s socket and stayed there, tasting, teasing. A small hand on his hip released him and buried itself in his valve instead, tearing static and a high whine from Kaon’s voxcorder.
Helex withdrew his tongue and licked the side of Kaon’s face, leaving a messy string of lubricant behind. “Wish I could fit my spike in that socket,” he said, “But I think it’s too small. Could still give it a try though, if you want…”
Kaon didn’t want a spike to the eye socket. He was sure of that. But his valve, already hot and clenching and thrilled at the feel of that smaller hand… that was another matter.
Wordlessly, Kaon rocked his pelvic plates up instead, gritting his dentae.
“Really?!” Helex’s field flared yellow with excitement. “You’re gonna let me spike you?! Primus, Kaon, do you know how badly I’ve wanted to fill you up…?”
Kaon grinned, possibly the first time he’d ever smiled at Helex. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for someone who could spike me and not die?”
Helex’s field washed over him, ravenous and burning with a fiery heat that sent Kaon’s fans into wailing overdrive. “Oh, sparkler, I’m gonna spike the frag out of you,” Helex growled. “I’m gonna stretch you so wide and deep your plating’s gonna crack.”
Helex was so hot, so close, so big. Kaon whined and jerked his pelvic plates again, aware all of a sudden that he was empty, that Helex had pulled his hand away and his valve was clenching around nothing. “Please - ”
Helex growled, steam curling out of his mouth. “ Unngh. I love it when you beg. I’ve thought about you begging for my spike since the moment I laid optics on you.” He bent and bit down hard on Kaon’s crest, denting the metal and leaving a bright spark of pain in his wake. A love-bite: Helex’s version of a kiss. Savage, but almost charming, knowing now how Helex operated.
Helex lapped at the wound he’d left, licking up energon as it welled to the surface. “I hope you’re ready,” he said, nuzzling Kaon’s audial. He vented, and it felt like fire against Kaon’s face, like sailing into the sun. “I’m not gonna be gentle, sweetspark.”
“I don’t care,” Kaon said, gripping Helex’s shoulder spikes. “Hurt me if you like. I want to be full. ”
Helex hissed, a sound Kaon briefly mistook for anger until Helex’s field lit up for him: pulsing a deep, lurid pink, like Tarn’s did when he was especially turned on. “That can be arranged,” he growled. He bared his teeth, and Kaon shivered, cowering underneath his partner. Helex caught the shiver and grinned the wider, leaning down and -
Oh, he was sucking on the coils, oh Primus, frag, frag frag frag frag -
“Helex!!” Kaon screamed, jolting upwards. Helex’s teeth scraped the ball of the coil while his tongue slithered down further, following the path of the coils as they curved downwards, leaving thick, wet trail behind. Kaon could smell the electric burn in Helex’s mouth, but Helex didn’t seem to notice. Kaon’s coils pulsed, trying to shake excess charge, and in the process caught and highlighted the mass of Helex’s spike, one hand guiding it towards Kaon’s small, tight valve…
Then Kaon’s processor gave up on visual cues, turning instead to bright showers of color: glowing lights that danced in the place of any visual data. Completely blind now, Kaon groped for Helex, clinging as Helex slid him down lower, waiting for the first thrust -
Helex’s full weight bore down on him, and a huge round spike head pressed against Kaon’s valve lips. Kaon cried out and made to bear down onto it - but Helex pinned him firmly, wave after wave of heat rolling over Kaon’s frame. “Hey, remember when we met?” Helex asked.
Kaon froze, fingers digging into the seams of Helex’s smelter. “Wh-what?”
Helex’s weight was all Kaon could feel, so much it was almost crushing him. “That thing I said, the first day we met.” He leaned in close, fans singing a song of triumph. “Told ya I’d crack you one day.”
Kaon made to retort, but only a scream escaped him: Helex punctuated those last words with his first thrust, stretching Kaon nearly beyond his limits. His calipers jerked wide to accommodate the smelter, and Kaon wept as his frame lit up with both agony and ecstasy. It hurt so much and yet it was exactly what he wished for: pain and fullness, physical presence.
He barely had time to feel the overload before it hit him: wave after wave of rolling charge, fanning out from his valve and up through every strut and line. Echolocation and auditory data briefly blitzed offline as his legs shuddered in Helex’s grip, calipers clamping down on Helex’s twitching spike. His fans screamed as they gave out and shuddered to a halt as bolt after bolt shot out of him and into the berth, into his partner.
The overload dragged on a few nanokliks longer before it finally began to die, Kaon twitching again and again as the last waves hit him. He was suddenly aware that Helex was shaking, possibly talking - but Kaon could barely hear him over his screaming systems, warning him that his audials were malfunctioning, his fans had burnt out, and his valve was dangerously close to tearing. Kaon reached up and petted the hot door of Helex’s boiler, the only gesture he could make to ensure Helex was alright.
He must have been fine, for the instant he felt Kaon petting him, Helex shifted and rolled onto his back, pulling Kaon with him. Now slumped on top of the smelter instead of beneath him, Kaon weakly lifted his head, coils resetting and sending a vague pulse to provide him with some kind of echolocation data.
Helex was watching him, as he had been for orbital cycles now, and he was smiling.
“Beautiful,” he purred, pressing the fingers of one small hand to Kaon’s mouth. Kaon turned and nuzzled into the touch, parting his lips and lapping at the digits offered to him. It helped to ground him, and he gently nipped at Helex’s fingertips as he realized the smelter was starting to move again, Kaon’s frame rising and falling as Helex dragged his spike out slowly… so slowly… before thrusting back in at full force.
“ Unngghh… ” Kaon moaned, his frame crackling with static. His thighs clenched on either side of Helex’s hips, and his fingers scrabbled to find a grip on Helex’s chest. “He-elex… w-wait, please - ”
“Shhh,” Helex soothed. “Just one more for me, sparkler. You can do it. Just one more overload for me, pretty boy…”
Kaon wasn’t sure he could handle a third overload, but he didn’t want Helex out of him yet either. He found transformation seams and dug his fingers in, pushing himself into a sitting position and locking his quivering legs around Helex’s waist. Helex’s smaller hands took hold of his waist, one large hand sliding behind his back to hold him up. Thank Primus for that, because Kaon was almost certain he was going to fall over without it. Helex’s small hands lifted Kaon up, then pushed him down again - up, down, up, down, the huge spike inside him lighting up every single unused sensor as he went.
“ Aahhh - !” Kaon convulsed, a smaller overload overwhelming him, slower and less powerful than his previous two, but still more than Kaon could take with broken fans and an overheated frame. “Oh, Primus, fragging Pits…”
“Good,” Helex cooed, nipping at Kaon’s coils. “Good, that’s so good, sweetspark. Can you give me another one?”
“You said one more,” Kaon slurred, clutching at Helex’s seams. “You said just one - ”
“I know, sparkler, but you feel so good… ”
You feel good too. So good… so big… Kaon wanted to tell him, but he couldn’t get the words out. He sank down on Helex’s spike instead and clenched, mesh walls drawing in to sheath Helex’s unit even tighter.
“Frag, ” Helex snarled, jerking upwards with all the force he could muster. “Yes, yes, that’s perfect, do that again - ”
Kaon was drooling now, strutless and barely able to move at Helex’s pace; all he could do was cling on and let Helex move him, mesh tightening and then loosening again and again. Three overloads had left his valve wet and pliable - so much so that it began to feel as though it had shaped itself to Helex’s spike. Helex groaned and began to move faster, working up to a punishing pace. A stream of praise fell from his lips, constant and wonderful: You’re beautiful, your valve is so tight, ugh you’re amazing, if only you could see yourself…
Kaon grinned and pressed a sloppy, searching kiss to Helex’s smelter door, lapping at one of the hot metal bands that held it in place. Helex’s praise and pace both quickened at the touch of Kaon’s tongue, his steady, low tone rising bit by bit to a shout. He was moving too hard, too fast, and everything hurt and felt amazing. It was too much, it was not enough, it was so good…
Helex abruptly stopped Kaon from moving, holding him down until as much of his spike as could fit was sheathed inside Kaon. Steady pressure pushed Kaon down lower, further, until Helex’s spike rubbed endlessly against Kaon’s ceiling node. Every strut in Kaon’s frame went taut, waiting for the tension to snap - but it couldn’t, it didn’t. Helex’s hot spike head pressed hard and fast and forever against that node, lighting it up in endless waves as Kaon’s moans turned to wailing screams. Everything sparked bright and beautiful, his whole frame sizzled with pent up charge, and for a moment, just teetering on the edge, his coils flared bright and traced Helex’s face in angelic white -
Boiling heat burst against his ceiling node, a violent rush of agony and delight, and Kaon finally fell over that edge into the hardest overload he’d ever had. Lubricant squirted out of him in waves, hissing bolts of deadly voltage bursting from his frame in unsteady pulses, in time with his spurting spike. He had the vaguest notion of Helex shouting, and realized he was overloading too: thick trails of transfluid bursting inside him, spilling out from his squeezing valve, covering the berth… but nothing bothered him, not blissed out like this, not so full and warm and utterly satiated at last.
Then he was falling, falling straight into bluescreen recharge. He knew nothing but darkness for a long time after that - darkness, and warmth, and an endless ache he couldn’t quite place.
When he woke up the next morning, Helex was still there. Kaon was draped over the smelter door, all four of Helex’s arms wrapped tightly around him. He was warm beneath Kaon, throwing off heat, keeping Kaon cozy even in the Messatine morning’s chill.
This… wasn’t so bad, actually, Kaon thought. He was warm and safe and oh-so-satisfied, and he was getting cuddled to boot.
I could get used to this.
Kaon groaned and shifted, feeling a twinge of agony in his poor, abused valve. Primus, they’d probably torn the mesh. Kaon poked at it gingerly, the lips still puffy and sticky with transfluid and lubricant.
“Ugh,” he said, pulling his hand away in slight disgust. He slapped the smelter’s door, tapping it in quick succession. “You’re not dead, are you?”
Helex gave a sleepy laugh. “Doesn’t seem like it.” One hand petted Kaon’s head, soothing the angry welts his dentae had left on Kaon’s crest. “I told you it’d take more to kill me than that.”
Kaon hummed, leaning into Helex’s touch. “Hmm. I suppose you did. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you survived.”
“Are you kidding? I’m glad you survived. All that worry over me taking your heat and you almost overheated yourself.” Helex paused, tracing Kaon’s empty sockets with a smaller, curious finger. “You’re beautiful,” he said. He was more awake now, his voice clear and bright and almost worshipful. “You know that, right?”
“I can’t see, Helex. I don’t know anything about aesthetics,” Kaon said. He hesitated. Something about the flat denial felt wrong. “But… thank you for the compliment.”
A warning flashed in his HUD display: VISUAL DATA OFFLINE. REBOOT ECHOLOCATION?
Kaon dismissed the alert for the moment. His coils felt stiff and sluggish after so much energy had shot from them the previous night, and anyway he knew where Helex was this time. He didn’t need to see him to feel him there, warm and smiling and fans already humming, Primus help him.
Kaon’s valve gave a twinge of protest, followed very shortly by a trickle of lubricant that indicated the exact opposite. Four overloads and his first massive spike later and he was already eager to go again. Just like Helex.
Well. This was going to be an adventure. Maybe it was good that Tarn wasn’t going to be back for a few more orns...
“Next time,” Helex said, with what sounded like a grin, “I’m gonna frag the coils.”
Kaon vented disdainfully. “Your funeral,” he said. “Hope you’ve got a good explanation for an electrical burn to the valve.”
“Hope you’ve got a good explanation for why you’re walking funny,” Helex retorted. “I’m sure Tarn will love hearing about it when he gets back.”
Primus. Tarn would have to be informed of the… incident. Kaon winced at the thought and wondered if he would be jealous, or happy for his partner. “He won’t be very happy if you’ve caused me too much damage.”
“I’ll remind him that you begged me for it,” Helex said. “I’m sure all will be forgiven then. He did warn me you could be quite insistent.”
Kaon stiffened. “You talked about me? About my berth habits?”
“Oh yeah. He noticed I was interested. Sat me down to have a talk . You can imagine how that went.”
Kaon’s spark jumped beneath his turbine, swelling with an unfamiliar warmth. “Was he… was he jealous, or…?”
“Not as such. He just wanted me to know what I was getting into.” Helex pulled Kaon up to his face and nuzzled Kaon’s audial, lightly fingering one of the chair’s humming coils. “He thought you might be happy getting spiked for once. He did warn me about these, though.” He squeezed, and Kaon’s panel lit up with warmth. “I got an ‘on your helm be it’ of sorts once we’d worked past the whole ‘what are your intentions with my second’ thing.”
Kaon imagined Tarn in his office, imperious and glaring, with Helex pinned by Tarn’s voice alone to the floor, spilling all his darkest desires at the behest of his commander…
His valve clenched, eager and wanting, and suddenly Kaon very much wished Tarn would get home soon after all.
Helex stretched and sat up, turning to grab Kaon below the knees. “Hey, how about a shower?”
“Mmm,” Kaon said faintly, curling into Helex’s warmth. He was still thinking about Tarn and Helex, wondering if they could play together, all three of them at once. “A shower would be nice.”
“Perfect.” Helex’s smile throbbed to life in Kaon’s processor as his sensors finally came back online, mapping the room and the mech who held him. “I can’t wait to see what happens when you overload under solvent.”
Oh, that was a bad idea, that was a very, very bad idea. Someone - probably Helex, but maybe Kaon too - would get hurt. It would be dangerous and wrong and against every protocol Kaon knew -
Kaon grinned and nuzzled Helex’s neck, biting at his intake. “No time like the present to find out...”