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While I find the authors' research question fascinating—do organic species show evidence of understanding hierarchy—I have concerns about the authors' literature review, theory, methodology, and interpretation of the results. I have itemized these concerns below, though I have endeavored to limit my comments to seventy-five points, following the editors' request for concision.
1. The authors fail to cite any of the major research in the field of xenophilosophics...
"What are you reading?" asked Skyfire, leaning over the back of Starscream's chair and peering at the datapad he clutched in his talons. "Your processor is smoking."
"I got a revise and resubmit on that xenobehavior paper," bit out Starscream. He wasn't really smoking, was he? Frag, his helm did feel hot...
"That's great news, congratulations!" Skyfire beamed down at him.
Starscream scowled back and tried subtly to find his cube of coolant amongst the jumble of datapads and half-finished experiments on his desk. "It would be, but—listen to this. Reviewer One, great job, love your work, accept immediately. Reviewer Three, great job, I bow before your mighty genius, you are a deity among hopeless drudges. Reviewer Two—”
"They didn't say that," said Skyfire, reaching for the datapad.
Starscream jerked it away. "Reviewer Two, seventy-five point list of changes required before publication! He checked my grammar!"
It was difficult to play keepaway with a shuttle twice your size and with your helm halfway to a core meltdown. Starscream finally surrendered the datapad with the best show of graciousness that he could muster, then launched himself away from the desk to scavenge some frozen coolant blocks from the office coldbox. They were meant for sample preservation, but they were perfectly edible, Skyfire had plenty to spare, and anyway Starscream liked how they crunched between his teeth.
"Well," said Skyfire at last. "It is extensive."
"Exhaustive," grumbled Starscream. "Exhausting."
"Mhm." Skyfire glanced up from the datapad, and, oh, damn him, he was already wincing in anticipation. "But they also—”
"No," said Starscream. "Shut up, shut up, don't say it—”
"But they also," said Skyfire, inexorably, "have some good points."
Starscream threw a handful of coolant blocks at him.
"Don't pelt the messenger," said Skyfire, flicking his wings with only the faint irritation that Starscream ever managed to get out of him. "You'll have to respond to their comments in the revision anyway."
"Oh, I'll respond." Starscream snatched the datapad out of Skyfire's hand. "I'll respond so hard their optics'll pop out!"
"That's, uh." Skyfire rubbed the back of his helm. "That's unsettling."
"No one asked you!" Starscream flung himself back into his seat. “Now don’t pester me, I have a very professional and measured reviewer memo to write.”
“I always like to take a few days and think about comments after I receive them,” said Skyfire. “You know, let them settle?”
Starscream, already three paragraphs in and picking up speeds, ignored him.
---
In response to the reviewer's comment 23.j, I would like to first say that there is one author on this paper and it is me. If I say something happened, it happened. With the utmost respect for the reviewer, where the frag do you get off asking for documentation? If you're going to call me a liar, say it to my face. If you're not a coward, meet me in the parking lot at Maccadam's at midnight on the seventeenth day of Fremula, and we'll see who leaves with both satisfaction and more teeth than they started with. It won't be you.
Re: comment 23.k, I agree with the reviewer completely and have endeavored to give a clearer descriptive account of the rituals I observed on the planet before turning to interpretive analysis. The question of whether I have superimposed a mechanical viewpoint on these rituals is an interesting one—ultimately I am unable to fully remove myself from my own observations, and instead have listed this as a limitation on page 24, along with...
"What are you smiling about?" said Department Chair Tyrest, looming over Minimus where he was sitting in the office breakroom.
"Sir!" Minimus fought the urge to hide his datapad—he wasn't doing anything wrong. Reviewing papers was part of his tenure package, in fact, a small bit of service to academia that showcased his community-minded spirit.
But, Minimus thought guiltily, one wasn't supposed to enjoy it.
He offered the datapad to Tyrest, who was waiting somewhat impatiently for explanation. "I'm reviewing for Advances in Xenoethnography. This is the author's first revision."
"A little outside your field, isn't it?" Tyrest picked up the datapad between thumb and forefinger, as if it might contaminate him. "I don't see what aliens can contribute to our understanding of legal philosophy."
"Oh, it's really more of a philosophical paper than anything," Minimus reassured him. "The author attempts to illuminate our understanding of the origins of hierarchy and social cohesion by examining their presence or absence in an organic species. It's fascinating."
"Is it." Tyrest scrolled through the datapad. "The author is a little... combative, shall we say?"
"Willing to fight for their research," suggested Minimus. "I find it admirable, to be honest."
"Do you," said Tyrest. He tossed the datapad back onto the table, nearly upsetting Minimus’ cube of warmed energon. "Well. I trust you're rejecting the paper?"
"I," Minimus hesitated. "I'm not done reading the revisions yet. And, of course, rejection is ultimately the editor’s decision. I can only make a recommendation."
Tyrest smiled. "Little Minimus, always so conscientious. I'll leave you to it, then."
Minimus waited a few long moments after Tyrest left, just to make sure he was really gone. Then he picked up the datapad, scrolled back to the beginning of the revisions memo, and began making notes in the margins.
A smile crept back onto his face.
---
I appreciate the author's diligence in responding to my comments. Sadly I must decline the invitation to meet in the Maccadam's parking lot, as that would necessarily compromise the double-blind anonymity of the review process. I wonder instead if the author might elaborate on the ethical review process used by their university (or other place of research)...
---
Ethical review? If the reviewer really believes that I needed ethical review to go hover around a planet and watch a bunch of aliens kick a ball back and forth, I suggest that the reviewer get an ethical review to see if they're allowed to show their asinine face outside their lonely apartment. Anyway, I'm glad to see the reviewer otherwise recognizes most of my genius, and I appreciate their suggested citations for the literature review—I found the paper by Orion Pax especially helpful in guiding the development of my theory of hierarchy, though of course Pax's conception of authority is hopelessly simplistic...
---
I'm pleased that the author has addressed most of my concerns, and I now only have a few lingering points that I hope will not hamper publication. First, could the author perhaps include in the appendix the full qualitative coding scheme used to analyze the behavior of the organics? Second, the use of semi-colons in the paper is still bordering on excessive; I must plead with the author to reduce them to a sensible level as befits a scholar of their caliber...
---
Starscream was halfway into typing a rebuttal to Reviewer Two's latest misguided screed when he realized... he didn't have to. The paper was accepted. He had to make some changes before the final proof, sure, but he didn't have to respond. He'd never hear from Reviewer Two again.
"Good riddance," he muttered, and slunk off to pop some celebratory engex.
---
To be perfectly honest, the main reason Minimus was still wandering the conference halls at this late hour was because he was avoiding joining Tyrest at the bar where he’d been holding court ever since lunch. If Tyrest asked where Minimus had been that afternoon and Minimus said ‘in my hotel room,’ Tyrest would say something very sympathetic about how exhausting conferences could be, and then complain bitterly to their colleagues about Minimus’ anti-social and inconsiderate behavior on their trip. But if Minimus said ‘oh, I was attending a panel,’ Tyrest would just something condescending about Minimus’ vaunted work ethic and the slight would, if not forgiven and forgotten, at least be no more than what Tyrest expected from him.
If the academic job market was any less bleak… But no. Minimus had to remember just how lucky he was, to be employed and on the tenure track. It didn’t do to be ungrateful, no matter Tyrest’s foibles.
Minimus did enjoy attending panels, but he’d done his own presentation at the earliest morning slot, his processor was halfway to burnout, and the only attendees left were graduate students desperate to network and those panelists unfortunate enough to be assigned to the dreaded late-afternoon slot. Most of the presenters didn't even seem to be all that interested in their own research anymore, making slightly desperate jokes about not wanting to miss happy hour as they rattled through their slides with one optic on the clock.
Minimus was just about to give up and go wait attendance on Tyrest after all when his attention was arrested by a rare tone of enthusiasm coming from the conference room at the end of the hall.
"All right, I know I'm the last talk of the day and you all want to get out of here, but sit down, shut up, and don't even think about leaving, I have thirty-six slides of pure liquid genius here."
Minimus stood in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt. The speaker was a brightly-painted flight frame, glaring pointedly at the audience of exactly two intellectual-class microscopes who'd been in the process of packing away their datapads. Behind him, two of the three panelists who had already finished their presentations were making a valiant attempt to appear alert and interested; the third was slumped forward over the table and rapidly dozing off. The projection screen in the center of the room read Chaos on the Killing-Field: Hierarchy and Leadership Rituals among Alien Organics on Planet Gamma-Delta Three. Underneath the title was the speaker's designation: Starscream of Vos, Iaconian Polytechnic Institute.
"What are you lurking out there for?"
Minimus jolted and looked up to find the speaker—Starscream—had switched to glaring at him.
"I said sit down!" snapped Starscream. "Hurry up, everyone's waiting on you, no, not in the back, sit up here where you can see the slides. Good. Now, I'm sure you're all wondering why a real scientist is out here slumming it at a philosophy and sociology conference. Answer: I'm just so dedicated to furthering pure knowledge and getting that sweet, sweet tenure that I couldn't pass up a publication opportunity even in one of your laughable journals when it was handed to me on a silver platter. Today I'm presenting research that builds on my forthcoming, yes, you heard me right, accepted despite the best attempts of Reviewer Two to hold me back, my forthcoming paper in Advances in Xenoethnography. Next slide."
There was a long pause. Minimus could see the projector remote lying unattended in front of the dozing panelist. The two microscopes shifted uneasily in their seats, as if judging the distance to the door.
"Do I have to do everything around here?" complained Starscream, and advanced the slide himself by slamming a hand down on the projector’s manual controls. "Anyway. There I was, doing an energon survey on Gamma-Delta Three, when I stumbled across this strange ritual being conducted by the local organics..."
The microscopes clearly stopped paying attention after the third slide, muttering distractingly to each other about some nightclub that they wanted to get into early, before it started charging a cover. Minimus didn't understand how they weren't riveted. Starscream had packed the slides with aerial photos of the ritual he'd observed, dozens of organics chasing each other around a field inscribed with bizarre geometric patterns. An orb of unknown significance was passed between them, but the ritual always stopped as soon as a figure striped in spartan black and white ran out onto the field, making a piercing noise with a unique metal attachment.
Minimus had wondered how the author of that Advances paper had made such detailed observations, but of course Advances didn’t allow authors to encode images in their papers and authors were also strictly forbidden from revealing their frametype, both to preserve anonymity and as an attempt to combat the lamentable lingering prejudice that still poisoned even the pure realm of scientific enquiry. The presentation answered all of Minimus’ lingering questions. Cybertronians rarely got so close to organics without interfering in their society—often by accidentally stepping on them. The organics hadn't reacted to Starscream at all, his vertical position too high to hardly register on their limited sensory suites. Starscream’s sensor equipment, meanwhile, was far more powerful than most intellectual-class researchers could support, allowing him to easily collect data without flying down into the crowd and sending all the organics running and shrieking. If he continued this line of inquiry, he could provide enough data to support centuries of analysis. Minimus' processor was whirling with the implications.
"In conclusion," said Starscream, "this research presents a significant advance to your miserable field of study, which I'm sure you're all very grateful for. Questions?"
Minimus raised his hand just as the microscopes made a break for it. Starscream sprinted after them, but it was too late—they were out the door and Starscream simply stood shouting after them. "Cowards!" he shrieked. "You wouldn't know good research if it smacked you in the helm! Now, where were we?"
He turned back to find that the more alert panelists had slipped out a back door, dragging their dozing colleague along with them. Only Minimus was left, his hand still hopefully raised.
"Fine," said Starscream, stomping back to his place next to the projector. "Ask me your asinine questions."
"It's really more of a comment," said Minimus, swallowing down anxiety. "I—Well, I hesitate to lift the veil of anonymity, but I had the pleasure of reviewing your submission to Advances in Xenoethnography. I'd just like to say—”
"You," breathed Starscream. "It's you."
"Me?" said Minimus.
"Don't try to hide it." Starscream stalked forward. "I'd recognize that prissy tone anywhere. You're Reviewer Two."
Minimus stood up—he actually lost a little height, once out of the tall Cybertronian-standard chair, but it seemed more respectful to greet a fellow scholar standing on his own two feet. "Yes," he admitted. "And I just want to say what a pleasure it was to—”
"So, you decided to take me up on it," said Starscream, looming over him. "Well, I haven't had a fist fight at a conference since I was an undergrad, but I don't really care if this den of squishy science bans me, so—”
"Oh!" Minimus covered his mouth with one hand. "Oh, no, I'm not here to—to fight. Entirely the opposite, in fact."
Starscream took a half-step back. "The opposite?" he said, his optics brightening a little as if he were doing a complex mental calculation.
"Yes," Minimus assured him. "I was thoroughly engaged by your paper—your passion—I can see now that you're a novice to the field, it explains several of the more obvious mistakes, but to be able to rise above that and publish at such a prestigious journal—and your findings—” He was stumbling over his words in his frantic need to convey the depth of his admiration. He had the horrible feeling that he was being insulting—he was so bad at networking, Tyrest was always telling him so—but gratifyingly Starscream was giving him a look that was more considering than disdainful.
"It's like that, is it?" said Starscream, with an odd edge to his voice. "Okay, I see what you’re doing and the negging thing is real juvenile, but you've got my attention. We can go to the hotel bar, you can tell me everything you thought was wrong about my presentation, I'll explain why you're a pompous knowitall, and then we can just... see where the night takes us, how about that?"
"Oh, um." Minimus didn’t know what ‘negging’ was, but he could imagine sitting down with Starscream at the bar, in full view of Tyrest and his sycophants. They had extremely outdated opinions, both about interdisciplinary research and the suitability of flight frames as scholars. But he did want to talk to Starscream. "Perhaps—I have a room here at the hotel, if you'd like—”
Starscream's optics glowed. "Well. You do things fast in the social sciences, don't you? What's your name again?"
---
Minimus wasn't entirely sure how he'd ended up here, cradled in Starscream's arms, his back pressed up against the door of his hotel room as Starscream fumbled with the latch of his array. One moment he'd been listening to Starscream complain about conference fees as he unlocked the door, the next he'd been swooped up in the air, his mouth plundered by Starscream's tongue. Minimus had actually nipped him in surprise, and Starscream had growled and bit him back. It was all very unexpected, very, very... flattering, arousing, overwhelming. No one had ever wanted Minimus so much they couldn't keep their hands off him at their very first meeting.
No one had ever really wanted him at all.
"How the frag does this thing open?" grumbled Starscream, distracting Minimus from his rather maudlin thoughts. His talons were slipping over a catch designed for smaller fingers.
"Let me," said Minimus, breathlessly. He knew he should say something, this was clearly some kind of misunderstanding, he wasn’t the sort of mechanism who interfaced with strangers at conferences—but instead he reached down and flicked open his array, his discarded panel clattering somewhere on the floor below.
Starscream looked down at Minimus' array with undisguised hunger. Minimus could feel his valve already growing damp from the attention, the sensitive head of his spike beginning to peek out of its housing.
"I don't," said Minimus, and hesitated as Starscream's gaze snapped up to meet his optics. "That is, I—I don't do this kind of thing. Very often."
He wasn't sealed. He'd peeled those off himself when he ran the recommended diagnostics a few days after his forging. And he did own a vibrator that saw more use than he was comfortable admitting. But he didn't... or rather, other people didn't...
"Come on," said Starscream, his voice a husky rasp. "Smug little nerd like you, mechs gotta be lining up around the block for a chance at wrecking this tight valve." He ran one teasing finger along Minimus' slit as he spoke, lighting up every sensor with the promise of charge.
Minimus felt himself flush. "Oh, no," he said. "Not really."
Starscream chuckled and shifted so that all of Minimus' weight was balanced between the door and Starscream's arm under Minimus' aft. His other hand reached down to yank off his own panel. Minimus watched, transfixed, as Starscream tugged roughly on his spike until it reached its full extension.
Starscream's spike was long, a little oversized for his frame, the overlapping platelets of the shaft made gaudy by alternating crimson and gold paint. It suited him perfectly. Minimus couldn't imagine that any of it was going to fit. He almost said something to that effect, but his face felt so hot, and he really did think he'd combust if he tried to say anything vulgar.
Starscream released his spike, then sucked on two of his fingers for a long moment, drawing them back out in a practiced-looking move that showed just a hint of his tongue as it darted out to lick the tips of his fingers. Then he spat into his palm and smeared it over Minimus' valve.
Minimus was still reeling from the jolt of disgust and perverse arousal that inspired when Starscream pressed one finger into him and crooked it up to stimulate a particularly large cluster of sensors.
"I'm gonna ruin you," said Starscream. "You're gonna have to be carried to your panel tomorrow, you're gonna have to present sitting down, you're gonna squirm the whole time 'cause your valve's gonna be so swollen just having your panel fastened back up's gonna feel like I've got my hand on you, squeezing your array." He squeezed Minimus to demonstrate, the heel of his palm grinding against Minimus' rapidly-extending spike.
"I presented this morning," said Minimus, trying to retain some semblance of control and not thrust helplessly against Starscream's hand.
Starscream glared at him. "Just need the last word," he said, cryptically. "Well, by the time I'm done with you, the only words you'll be able to say are more, and please, and, uh—” He slipped another finger into Minimus, and Minimus gasped as he felt himself stretch around spit-slick talons.
"Starscream," he said—whined, really, his voice pathetically high-pitched.
Starscream's wings perked up. "Oh, yeah, I like that one. Say that again."
"Starscream," said Minimus, obediently. He'd meant it as the beginning of a sentence, but then Starscream began to thrust his fingers in and out in what must be only the faintest preview of what his spike would soon be doing and he promptly lost all control over his vocalizer. "Yes, yes, Starscream, please."
"Frag," bit out Starscream. "This is so easy, you're so easy, fragging—beg me for it."
Minimus felt like his whole world was narrowing down to the throbbing of his array, all his worries and concerns about what Tyrest would think and whether anyone could hear them through the door and whether he really wouldn't be able to walk tomorrow just melting away. "What?" he managed.
"Beg me for my spike," said Starscream. He was panting, his hips moving in little jerks as if he was only just restraining himself from thrusting deep into Minimus' valve. He pulled his fingers away, leaving Minimus open and empty, then rested the glistening golden head of his spike against Minimus' entrance.
Minimus made an embarrassing gurgling noise as he swallowed a moan. "Please spike me."
Starscream bit his lips as his hips jerked forward again and his spike slid through the lubricant now leaking in rivulets from Minimus' valve. "Say 'please spike me with your glorious tool, Professor Starscream, it's nearly as mighty as your CV.'"
"I'm not saying all that," choked out Minimus. He didn't think he could manage any words longer than two syllables.
Starscream reached out and actually pinched the head of Minimus' spike. Minimus couldn't help but jolt forward in surprised pain and pleasure, only saved from falling by Starscream's weight pinning him against the door.
"Say it," hissed Starscream, and pinched him again.
"Professor!" yelped Minimus. "Professor, professor, please, your research is so good and your ideas are so clever, please, please spike me!"
Starscream moaned and finally sank into Minimus' hungry valve.
Minimus had expected pain, but between the stretching and the lubricant and the desperate arousal, Starscream's spike slid into him like Minimus had been forged to receive it. Starscream only stopped when his hips pressed up against Minimus' aft, biting his lip as if this was almost too much for him too.
Minimus reached down and pressed a hand to his abdomen—he couldn't feel anything there, but Starscream's spike must be halfway up his internals, it must—
Starscream made a guttural noise and then he'd seized first one of Minimus' wrists and then the other, pinning them above Minimus' helm with one hand. His hips thrust once, almost experimentally, and Minimus felt his whole body convulse as the spike inside him stimulated parts of his frame that he'd never been able to reach with his own fingers.
"What do you do?" asked Starscream, his optics fixed to where he had Minimus split open.
Minimus tried to ask him what he could possibly mean by that, but then Starscream thrust again and the air was punched out of his throat. "Nghahh?" he managed.
"What department," said Starscream, the edge of impatience in his tone undercut by the smile he aimed up at Minimus' face. "You're—what, a xenobiologist? You ever let some big tentacle alien lay eggs in you? Is that how you stretch this wide?"
"No," panted Minimus. Gradually he was getting used to the rhythm of Starscream's movements, the way his spike cored him open on the way in and the way the platelets flared on the way out, the edges of them dragging against dozens of sensors before they slicked back down as Starscream shoved in again.
"No," he repeated, his voice gaining strength. "I'm a lawyer. That is, I have a law degree. I teach legal ethics in a philosophy department."
"You don't even have a doctorate?" Starscream's smile grew into a grin. "They must have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel when they were looking for reviewers."
"I have a Juris Doctor," said Minimus, trying to sound reproving even as his valve tightened around Starscream's spike, grinding his internal sensors against those maddening platelets. "And an MA in philosophy. My thesis was on—”
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Starscream thrust a little harder. "Did you want to be a real scientist when you climbed out of the dirt, is that why your valve is clinging to me like you're trying to keep me buried inside? What do they say, every sociologist wishes they were a biologist, every biologist wishes they were a chemist—”
"Every chemist, a physicist; every physicist, a mathematician; every mathematician, a philosopher," said Minimus, instinctively completing the quote. He had a framed poster of it in his office, a neat little reminder that every line of scientific inquiry came down to questions of meaning in the end.
For some reason Starscream didn't seem gratified by Minimus' addition—his face twisted, and he spat out "you think you're better than me?"
"No?" said Minimus.
"Well, frag you, just because you're—” Starscream stopped, his expression flickering for a moment between indignation and confusion. "No?"
"No," repeated Minimus, and then, because that didn't seem to be enough and because he so dearly wanted those long punishing thrusts back, "no, of course not, Professor."
Like a lightbulb turning on, the bright grin was back on Starscream's face. "That's right." He curled forward over Minimus, his wings angling so that he was surrounding, sheltering him. He picked up the pace of his thrusts until Minimus was strung taught like a bow between the hands gripping his aft and wrists. He couldn't pull too hard, couldn't risk breaking Starscream's grip, but the way it felt when he flirted with the edge like this...
Starscream dropped one wrist, and Minimus nearly hit himself in the face with his own hand as it fell. "What?" he mumbled, struggling to reroute power from his array back to his processor.
"Touch yourself," ordered Starscream. "You want me to come inside you?"
Minimus looked down and realized his spike was fully pressurized and leaking. He wrapped his hand around it in a daze. "What?"
"Would you prefer it if I overloaded within your needy valve," said Starscream, in an affected pompous tone that he might actually believe resembled Minimus' own diction. "Or would it be more desirable if I extracted myself and sprayed my transfluid across your verdant thighs?"
"I—” Minimus couldn't think when Starscream was fragging him like a piston, not when his own thumb was rubbing over the wet head of his spike, but he couldn't bear if it stopped either. "Inside. Please."
"Please?" Starscream tilted his helm.
"Please, ah, profess—” began Minimus, and then lost the rest of the word in a wail as Starscream dropped his other hand to Minimus' aft, tilted him up just a few degrees more, and thrust so far inside that Minimus swore he felt it in the top of his helm.
---
A few minutes or a few hours later, Minimus looked up muzzily from the pile they'd collapsed into when Starscream's knees gave out and said "berth."
"Hnngh?" said Starscream, lips moving against the luridly patterned carpet where he lay facedown on the floor.
"Berth," insisted Minimus. "I. We. We can't recharge here."
"Gnnngh." Starscream rocked his helm from side to side. "I can so. Can sleep anywhere. I've been on planets."
"We're on a planet right now," said Minimus. "A planet with a berth."
"Alien planets," insisted Starscream. "And my legs don't work."
Minimus considered this and found it a reasonable argument. Starscream had taken on most of the heavy lifting in their sexual encounter. If Minimus was feeling like he'd been hit by a semi-truck (or, more accurately, a fighter jet), Starscream was probably feeling twice as exhausted.
"I'll carry you," decided Minimus.
"You'll—Hey!" yelped Starscream, his legs kicking as Minimus lifted him into his arms. It was only a few steps to the berth, which was inadequately sized for a seeker but was fully furnished with recharge contact points. Minimus laid Starscream on it so that at least only his legs hung over the end and then clambered up to lie on top of him. His plating warmed as the berth engaged and charge began to trickle up through Starscream's armor.
"You're fragging strong," said Starscream, in an odd little hushed tone.
Minimus shrugged. Now that they were on the berth, his processor longed to shut down and spend a few cycles incorporating all of this fascinating new sensory and emotional data.
"Could've got down from there whenever you wanted, huh," persisted Starscream. "Probably could've fragged me up against the wall." His frame gave an odd little tremble underneath Minimus, and one hand crept down to cup Minimus' array where his valve was, yes, swollen and leaking transfluid. "Guess you really liked it."
Minimus yawned. "Yes. It was a remarkably enjoyable first time."
Starscream was silent long enough for Minimus to drift into a drowse.
"You mean like," he said, just as Minimus was about to cycle into true defrag, "first time for us, right, not—”
"Hmm?" hummed Minimus, dragging himself back into awareness.
"First time fragging me, right?" said Starscream, sounding a little frantic. "Not, not anyone, right?"
Minimus flushed and onlined his optics. "Well. If you must know, yes. This was my, ah, my first encounter."
Minimus had read some literature on the subject of romantic first encounters between a mature yet innocent ingenue and a daring, experienced rogue, and he'd been given to understand that on learning of a partner's innocence, the one who had performed a recent ravishing was supposed to grin dangerously and then kiss their partner fiercely, perhaps whispering heady promises about doing it all over again. Instead Starscream stared at Minimus as if Minimus had just struck him in the face with Starscream's own ripped-off spike, and then yelled "what" so loudly that Minimus abruptly remembered that they were in a hotel, that Tyrest had booked their department's rooms in a block, and that people he knew might have heard them.
"Your first ever?" shrieked Starscream, sitting up and ignoring Minimus' somewhat panicked attempts to hush him. "Your first time ever and you let me hate-frag you up against the wall?"
"It was a door," murmured Minimus. "Please, can you—”
"That's not the point!" insisted Starscream. "First times are supposed to be like—There should be crystals and engex and someone should be kissing their way up the arch of your calf, and—Wait, you've never even done oral?"
Minimus was once again flushed so hot he thought his helm might explode. "No, I haven't had the pleasure. Please keep it down, it's after quiet hours and I don't want any noise complaints."
Starscream stared at him silently. Minimus got the feeling that it wasn't obedience that had him so quiet—rather, he simply didn't know what to say.
"I'm at the conference for the rest of the week," offered Minimus, shyly. "We could do crystals and engex and, ah, other things tomorrow. If you'd like. Unless—does 'hate-fragging' mean—”
"No," said Starscream, all in a rush. "No it—I'd love to." He bit his lip, then shook his wings out and recovered a hint of his usual demeanor. "What I mean is, I'm sure you'd be honored to have dinner with me. Maybe some of my innate superior intelligence will rub off on you."
"Mm," said Minimus. "That's not the only thing I'm hoping will rub off on me."
He felt like an absolute clown saying it, but the expression on Starscream's face was worth it.