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Cyclonus loathes noise. The kind of clamour that feels as if it is sculpted into the very walls of Swerve’s bar, settled there permanently by sheer exposure alone. It is in the pervading din of layered voices, too many conversations of too varied a volume to ever be able to truly parse from each other, in the clangs and clatters of glasses and cubes, in the occasional bout of raucous laughter that breaks over it all.
It is, unerringly, too much. Too loud; too oppressive, filling the air until there is little space left between sounds to breathe, much less to think. It has never been his scene, never will be, and is far from his choice of locations to spend his existence.
And at the moment, he’s barely aware of it at all. The noise is a distant afterthought, the cloying space it occupies in the air nothing more than a vague memory, something he knows is there simply by fact rather than experiencing it.
Because in the middle of it all—the blurred, disregarded shapes and colors of too many frames to bother identifying, the layered voices he doesn’t care to parse—is the one figure that has his focus. Details as sharp as cut glass, muted words barely more than a whisper that he should not be able to hear over the noise, Tailgate may as well be the only other person here.
He’s been roped into something, the details of which Cyclonus doesn’t care to know. A game of some kind, the usual fare he often has little choice in joining with Swerve around to disregard any protests one way or another. It’s as common an occurrence as most other ridiculous happenings aboard this ship; though, thankfully, an entirely harmless one.
Tailgate participates to the best of his ability, more genuinely than he really has to considering he didn’t seem to want to play in the first place. And he does well, in Cyclonus’ opinion, one that he is choosing to willfully disregard any bias that everyone in this room would fully know is there, and which all of them know better than to comment on.
Even without knowing what it is they’re actually doing, or attempting to accomplish, Tailgate makes for a fond sight. He is a charming wash of soothing, mild colors amidst the cacophony of everyone else, something focused and intent compared to the careless chaos around him. The bright, vibrant blue hues of his visor are a tell that he is paying attention to the task in front of him and nothing else; the steady movements and minute adjustments of his limbs are a tell that he is trying to get it right.
As ridiculous as whatever this thing is, he is giving it his all. Cyclonus does not need to know anything more to appreciate his efforts, much less the fact he would not bother to stay here otherwise. There are few, if any, reasons that he would tolerate this level of loud and obnoxious activity; save for this very one.
Tailgate’s pale finish makes him stand out amidst the crowd. Not as if he doesn’t belong, but like a beacon, brighter than the others and faintly reflecting every other color around him. Not so unlike the mirror finish of a pristine lake, or the ghosts of reflections on the darkened glass of windows. A hint of everything else, dusted over him like an accent that does nothing to detract from what’s underneath.
Some might call him plain. That is to say, Tailgate himself; doubts and insecurities that have been slowly coming to light in recent times, admissions whispered in the dark when he feels brave enough to voice them.
In little pieces, the turning of a page or the stroke of a brush, it forms an image and tells a story. One that Cyclonus already knew, to some extent, though not to the one he’s coming to understand now with each new piece. He’d known there were cracks, flaws, and the insecurities that come with them and everything around them.
He understands. Knows what it feels like, even if he cannot see it himself, cannot see the beginning and the end of the doubts and their origins. Right now, all he sees is sleek, sharp angles on the comparatively darkened backdrop; crisp edges of pearlescence that catch every light, every color, streaks of vibrancy running along Tailgate’s plating like a shimmering artwork. One that moves on its canvas, alight and alive as much as the frame it dances over.
There are times when Cyclonus’ mind is filled with nothing but a cascade of thoughts. Memories and questions, regrets and the wandering, meandering trail of a restless consciousness. Times when there is too much to think and too little time, falling into a void of everything and accomplishing nothing at all. Times when he can do little more than stare, and wade his way through it all.
This is not one of those times, nor is it ever.
Like the din of the bar being dampened, muted away until he’s barely aware it’s there at all, his thoughts are mild and wordless. His optics stay trained on Tailgate as if he were magnetically charged, following him with ease no matter who he disappears behind or for how long. It brings with it a feeling rather than any real, solid thought, for as long as he watches him focus on his game and give it everything he has.
It’s a feeling he is well familiar with by this point. One that clings to Tailgate like static, a radiating buzz that never fails to ensnare Cyclonus in its grasp. It’s warm, something calming and quiet and insulating, the very thing that drowns out everything between and around them.
He could stay right here and watch Tailgate, no matter what it is he’s doing, forever, if the opportunity arose. He would, if it ever did.
Perhaps then he would find the words to describe exactly what it is he sees, in these moments. In the feelings it summons within him, the stirrings in his spark and the soothing of his jagged edges like it’s simply so easy. Perhaps then he could make Tailgate see it, as well; at least enough to give him the same quieted thoughts he affords Cyclonus without even knowing.
Pastel colors shimmer over edges and curves he is well familiar with, trailing them like a gentle touch and highlighting Tailgate in the clamour. Cyclonus is only distantly aware of his face finding his servo, resting there while he watches with the rapt attention deserved by the center of his world.
His bubble of peace—the distant noises kept there, the pressing bodies a long forgotten annoyance—is shattered by a claw waving in front of his optics. As demanding as it is disorienting, it snaps his attention back away from the glimmer of overhead lights on edges of white plating.
“Are you even listening?” Whirl is asking when he turns his head, barely audible over the rest of the bar all trying to speak over each other at once. He’d preferred being distracted.
“No.”
Whatever else Whirl has to say next ends up in the same place as anything he’d said before, lost to the din and Cyclonus’ disinterest in attempting to grasp for it. A complaint, a jab at what has his attention so raptly elsewhere; things that he has no shame in the truth of.
His attention drifts, like the needle of a compass falling once more into place, back to Tailgate. He has not moved, has not been freed from the game he has been forced into by social expectations, but something has shifted in the short time Cyclonus’ focus was elsewhere. No longer is he the picture of focused determination, trying his best with likely little more knowledge of what he’s supposed to be doing than Cyclonus himself knows.
Vivid blues have paled to icy tones, steady movements replaced by something visually similar, but jagged at the edges. His visor is pinned towards the floor, focusing not on himself or his attempts at getting it right, but on disengaging himself from a scenario he cannot back out of without calling attention to himself.
Though Tailgate rarely has a choice in being part of these things, as unwilling to refuse as Swerve is to listen, it’s more often than not that he finds himself having fun somewhere along the way. Excursions and scenarios that result in chattered stories excitedly shared later; a vibrancy and carefree nature overtaking him in the process, a sight to behold that warrants braving even the oppressive noise of the bar to witness.
This is not that. Whatever the reason, Tailgate is not having fun this time. Cyclonus pushes himself out of the corner booth, ignores the mid-sentence protest it earns him from his uninvited neighbor, and makes his way through the crowd.
He hears a complaint, somewhere, over his approach. Groans of resignation that know for what purpose he is here for, and the knowledge that there is nothing they can do to sway him. It makes him the antagonist, the target to carry the blame of interrupting whatever it is they’re doing, the one to spoil their fun at no one’s fault but his own.
That is exactly as it should be. All of it is of little concern to him; what matters, what holds his full and entire focus, is the softened warmth of vibrant blue in concealed optics. A color that tells of Tailgate’s relief even when his words, put-upon and staged, feign disappointment at being pulled away.
Even if watching him and seeing him enjoy himself did not soothe Cyclonus’ inner self and bring him the peace that it does, he would still linger. He would still watch from the shadows, just in case, no matter how rare these moments may be.
The hallway is relief, empty and quiet and much cooler than the elevated temperatures inside. Tailgate sags against him the moment the door closes behind them, no longer restrained by the need to please those around him, to pretend he is still having fun when he is not.
Cyclonus waits for him to speak, allowing him to decompress in the silence without interruption.
“Sorry,” he says first, eventually, like clockwork. He always does, as if Cyclonus minds this in the slightest. “I…”
Unusually, Tailgate hesitates. He always offers a reason, regardless of the fact Cyclonus does not need one beyond knowing he wants to leave. But rarely does he hesitate, visor still trained towards the floor, servos wringing against each other and held close to his frame. He picks at the paint on the edge of a thigh plate.
Gently, Cyclonus lays a servo over Tailgate’s, stilling his movement and deflecting him from needlessly ruining his finish.
The silence stretches on, longer than normal. And when he does break it, it’s with a small, resigned mumble and a lackluster tug on Cyclonus’ servo. “Let’s just go home.”
He does not want to talk about it, it would seem. His reasons for needing an escape often vary, anything from being overwhelmed to simply finding the activity does not fit his interests after all, but none of those things ever manage to upset him. This is something else, something beyond just having reached his limit.
Tailgate stays quiet and introspective for the entire walk back. He does not greet, nor even seem to notice the few mechs they pass in the halls, and even when they arrive back at their habsuite, he stays far away inside his head.
There’s a certain feeling that lingers in moments like this. Not unlike the admissions whispered to the darkness, it’s a sort of tension that rises slowly, gathering like storm clouds until it’s ready to break. Cyclonus waits for it; locks the door behind them, guides Tailgate to sit down, and settles beside him.
His face carries unspoken doubts, his frame drawn taut with the same tension that hovers in the air, his servos flexing open and closed with an ungrounded restlessness. Tailgate is somewhere between somber and agitated, a fine line drawn between without falling fully into either, a careful balancing act under the weight of a silence that belies its own encroaching end.
Even now, there is something delicate about it, like the subject within a piece of fine artwork. A snapshot of a moment, often immortalized at the expense of the viewer never learning what it is that the subject is thinking so intently about. He looks up, for just a moment, breaking the illusion with a shade of blue that looks more fragile than delicate.
“Do you think I…” Tailgate starts, stops, and shakes his head. Seconds tick between as he attempts the courage to try again. “I, um… I should leave stuff like that to people like Rodimus, huh?”
It takes on a telling tone. Something stilted, unfamiliar for the few moments it takes Cyclonus to identify it as almost loathing. Uncertainty, insecurity, wrapped up in a too-thin veil of humor. He tilts his head, questioning as gently as possible, knowing full well what hides underneath that veil but knowing it needs to be said rather than inferred. “Why so?”
A beat of silence. A vague, half-dismissive wave, torn between things that want to be known just as much as they do not want to be said. “You know.”
Cyclonus nudges him. Gentle, reminding, a push that barely makes his frame sway before it is removed from his space once more. “I cannot read your mind, Tailgate.”
He may have his assumptions, of course. He knows Tailgate just as well as Tailgate knows him; has learned how to read the subtle shifts of light, the near-constant fidgeting of his fingers, to know what they mean.
Still. It is best that Tailgate tells him, himself, no matter what he may think is wrong, no matter whether it turns out his assumptions are correct or not.
“...Y’know. I’m not like— I’m not like him, or Drift, or…” A faint flicker of blue is the only tell that concealed optics flit upwards, briefly. Shy, despite everything between them, even now. “You.”
Leaning in, Cyclonus rests his head against Tailgate’s, a grounding contact. “Tailgate,” he begins with a pause, just enough of a chiding tone to imply the rest.
“You guys are pretty.” Tailgate mumbles in a rush, giving in to the urging to plainly say what has gotten under his plating. “And I’m not. And that’s okay! I know I’m not… much.”
Sliding from the berth, Cyclonus lets artificial gravity pull him to the floor. Tailgate’s plating is smooth under his fingers as he goes, impossibly more than it appears even under the raking light, a fact he long since knows and is still taken by each and every time he is reminded of it. And though his knees on the ground are not enough to entirely erase their height difference, it brings Tailgate to a center stage where he belongs.
Tailgate watches him. Visor dimmed to a deep, pensive hue, he has no idea just how much he continues to evoke the image of a sitter in a painting. He waits, silent, uninterrupting; knowing Cyclonus has something to say, some response to his self deprecating that warrants this shift in angles.
“To be entirely honest with you,” Cyclonus begins, suffusing his voice with a warmth he can feel with each word. A smile threatens to tug at his face, try as he might to suppress it in favor of hoping to make Tailgate see what he is blind to. “I do not have the slightest clue what any of you were doing. Least of all, the others.”
“Was I that bad?” Tailgate tries, again, for that thin humor. Cyclonus leans in, softly resting his head against azure glass.
It’s so wonderfully warm under his touch.
“No.” This close, he can nearly see within, to the faint glow of hidden optics that are not hidden enough to conceal the emotion brimming within them, threatening to overflow at the slightest jostle. “On the contrary, you were lovely. I could not have taken my optics off of you even if I’d wanted to.”
Though he averts his gaze, flustered and unwilling to believe, Tailgate’s servo finding an anchor on Cyclonus’ plating is a tell that he isn’t entirely unswayed. “You’re just saying that.”
“No. You can ask Whirl. I’m sure he would have some… choice words to share about what little success he had in drawing my attention away from you. Something that would involve ‘brick’ and ‘wall,’ I would imagine.”
Tailgate stares at him. The tension, gathering its storm in the air for all this time, draws taut. It lingers; pulls, and snaps with the startled laugh that escapes Tailgate of its own will.
The sound makes Cyclonus’ spark flutter, twirling and coiling into something so warm and light. He cannot help himself but to lean closer still, servos finding their way around Tailgate as his head dips down, resting in a familiar edge of a vibrant blue collar fairing.
It’s matched in return, Tailgate’s servos drifting up, finding exactly where they belong in that vulnerable space on the back of Cyclonus’ neck. They rest there, the sheer weight of them purely imagined under just how gently Tailgate holds him.
He isn’t entirely sure how long ticks by. The world outside could have ended, time itself winding down until nothing is left, and he wouldn’t care to look up and find out when he can simply be here.
Tailgate’s soft, uncertain voice does exactly what the world or the universe itself could never. “I don’t know what you see in me.” He admits. Not for the first time, and likely not for the last. Cyclonus reacts as he always does and always will, lifting his head and yearning for the ability to share exactly that.
But he can’t. Not yet, at least, not exactly as he sees it, true to form and without dilution in the air between their being.
Silk-smooth, warm plating thrums under his fingertips. Steady vents breathe in and out, fluttering disturbed air over him in the faintest sensation of non contact, while the whispering pull of a spinning spark echoes in a realm of sense altogether undetectable and yet right there.
A familiar symphony. Music in the silence, in the form of a person that fills his world with color. His own spark pulses, thrums, pulls and pulls and pulls.
“Can I show you?” He asks. It has no right and yet every reason to be breathless, desperate and yearning and falling out of his mouth as if poise and tact had never been invented. It’s not enough, but it’s all he has, words distant and out of his reach but touch so very close, second nature and never enough.
But Tailgate, blessed Tailgate, hears him. Understands, even if it’s not enough, even if it will never be enough. He shudders, shivers, echos Cyclonus’ threadbare composure back at him with a whisper just as breathless. Though where Cyclonus’ poise has been forgotten, a mess without grace as he stumbles over himself in every sense but the literal, Tailgate is refined and delicate, something so much more on his side of the mirror.
His faint, ragged “Please,” may as well be magnetic for the effect that it has.
The tension is gone from the air, shattered like the fizzling embers of a firework drifting back to earth. In its place is something thick and comfortable, a warmth that suffuses the room and insulates them from everything else. It’s that static that emanates from Tailgate, draws Cyclonus in and mutes the world around them until nothing else can take his attention from him.
Cyclonus’ fingers trace familiar lines and edges, just as reverent as the first time he followed them. He is not a mech of design; details and delicacies lost on him, too ingrained in the necessity for function to care for the frivolities of form. When it comes to Tailgate, however… It is a necessary loss that Cyclonus must pull away, to give up sustained contact for the ability to see him in full, to appreciate everything shown to him as best as he is able.
And it is worth it. His palms glide over the lower edge of Tailgate’s chassis, fingers dipping underneath as he goes. Small as he may be, Tailgate is strong, sturdy; an unyielding force beneath his touch, impressive and entirely hidden within impossibly small confines. Paradoxically, he is soft, pliant, sighing out at the contact and sagging backwards onto his elbow joints, that hidden force yielding fully and without hesitation to Cyclonus.
Tailgate’s abdominal plates are a flat plane, smooth with little to show for in the way of segmenting. His points of motion are hidden beneath each other, protected and sleek in a way that the consecutively layered design so many others flaunt simply cannot compare. An uninterrupted surface, imperfections in which would be impossible to miss in the near-reflective shine of Tailgate’s pale blue paint.
Which only makes it that much more apparent that there are none. Nothing but perfect, smooth plating, free of dents and bumps and even the slightest hint of warping. The color catches the light once again, streaks of reflected blues and tinges of teal that dash over his form uninterrupted.
There is no need for segmenting, for layering. The lines of light draw his touch, fingertips tracing ever so gently along its edge, straight as a blade and infinitely more appealing than anything he has ever known. It guides him to the edge, seamlessly leading him to the ever so minute space of Tailgate’s hip joint. Just like the rest of him, it is well protected, curved in such a way to protect him from any harm. The gap is small, only just wide enough to accommodate the tips of his claws trailing within ever so delicately.
Beneath his touch, feather-light as it may be, Tailgate shudders. Almost violently, plating rattling against his frame. Glancing up, he’s met with the sight of a deep vivid blue, flickering within its visor like the crackle of barely contained lightning.
“Is this alright?” Cyclonus asks. His voice feels almost foreign to him already, fixated as he is on every detail laid before him and the sounds that accompany them. Tailgate’s response is to click; his vocalizer failing him, replaced by aggressive and stuttering nodding in the time it takes to reset.
When it does, his voice is still rough, deeper than usual and interspersed with static. “Yeah.” And almost like an afterthought, a moment between the words like his processor is already lagging behind, another “please.”
Satisfied, Cyclonus allows his optics to drop back down. Only the tips of his claws are hidden beneath immaculately protective plating, resting in the divide between the blue hues of his torso and the pearlescent white of his legs. Tailgate shudders again the moment he moves, tracing just beneath the edge of that white plating and following its curves like an unhurried path towards the junction of his thighs.
Shivers chase him, miniscule tremors that shake the metal beneath his touch. Even through this small point of contact, he can feel the heat gathering and spreading through Tailgate’s frame, radiating into his plating with each wandering touch. The sounds of fans increasing in speed, in gasping vents escaping the subject of his undivided attention, tell him just how much Tailgate anticipates the end of this journey.
Cyclonus is not cruel, least of all to the mech below him. But even he has his weaknesses, his temptations, try as he might to suppress them and give Tailgate everything he deserves and beyond. This is one of them; an irresistible urge to reroute his path, to let his claws find the near-imperceptible seam where front and back plating align, and migrate away from the growing heat of the panel he’d been approaching.
He is… not particularly apologetic, to be entirely honest, at Tailgate’s answering whine. Rushing is the last thing he finds himself wishing to do, far more inclined to let this moment stretch forever into the ends of time.
Besides; he has not forgotten those whispered admissions to the darkness of their hab, supposed flaws and shortcomings that Tailgate sees. Pearlescent white gives way, ever so subtly, to a shift in hue just below the top edge of Tailgate’s thighs. Along with the faintest sensation of texture, bumps and ridges nearly invisible on the surface of his metal, old weld lines and matched paint betraying what has been replaced.
A point of insecurity for him. Doubt, too-aware of himself and fearing optics landing on him through the same lens as his own, fearful of the flaws he perceives as distasteful, as a sign of his failings and mistakes.
Drawn down as if tied by gravity, Cyclonus meets the divide. The subtle line of old and new metal, the ever so faint waves of not-quite sanded away imperfection, rough under his lips. His claws wrap around, fingers dwarfing the back of Tailgate’s thigh as he tightens his hold, anchors his other half exactly where he wants him.
A shuddering breath rattles out of Tailgate as Cyclonus, ever so meticulous as to not miss a single millimeter, follows the entirety of the imperfect trail laid before him with each kiss more reverent than the last. Like the meeting of oceans, old and new bridge together in something as jagged as himself, a mark of the past and present and the fraught way they meld between one to the next.
Tailgate sees it as a flaw, a permanent reminder of his failings, a sign of proof that he is less than he thinks he should be. Cyclonus sees a reminder of the circumstances that allowed this, them, to be. Of the web of miniscule decisions and events that, ultimately, culminated in the reality they exist in, for the threads of fate to align in just such a way that they are here; that Tailgate is with him, now.
That he is here, below him, warm and shivering and waiting so very patiently for Cyclonus’ continued touch.
Lips still pressed to the jagged waves of imperfect metal, Cyclonus looks up, optics finding his beloved. Tailgate watches him, every shade of blue he knows and more flickering back at him, worked up and charged and barely contained within a sturdy frame that begs to be taken apart and put back together with love and care.
His spark pulses, sweeping against its cage as if it wants to escape and stay with Tailgate forever. Cyclonus cannot blame it.
His lips part, his voice escaping him as if his spark has chosen to simply speak for him.
“You are beautiful.”
Tailgate makes a noise. Wordless, overwhelmed, something high pitched and as broken as it is perfect. It coincides with his panel snapping back, his self control shattered, offering Cyclonus tenfold of the beauty he was already taking in.
His flickering, shimmering visor, glowing with lightning blue; the streaks of light, reflecting every color in subtle hues off of his wonderfully pearlescent finish; his frame, as taut and anticipatory as it is pliant, spread before Cyclonus like an offering worthy of a deity. All the way down to his valve, a focal point amidst every other detail, cementing just how much he could be a work of art himself.
Pale, sheer white mesh is flushed vibrant blue, a perfect match to every other part of him. Darkened folds shimmer with ample slick, betraying just how long it has been gathering for, just how much Cyclonus’ slow venture has been pulling at his wants and needs. Though his biolights are small and few, self-described as plain, they flicker with a flustered tempo that syncs with the lightning in his visor as often as it veers away into its own pattern entirely.
Just as everything else that is Tailgate, Cyclonus finds himself drawn in, beckoned as if by a siren’s song. He’s distantly aware of the warmth in his own frame, of the hurried spinning of his own spark, equally as worked up as Tailgate himself. But his attention is firmly on the mech before him, on the sensation of beautifully imperfect plating under his fingers as he anchors himself, arms sliding beneath white thighs.
He leans in, pausing only at the telltale catch of Tailgate’s breath, the stutter in blaring fans. Drawing on what remains of his own self control, Cyclonus commands his gaze upward, finding Tailgate’s face above and meeting concealed optics. Heat burns between them in equal measure, nothing but unbridled and unashamed want simmering behind blue glass.
Cyclonus holds his gaze as he resumes, leaning in and gently licking a stripe up through glistening folds. Tailgate draws in an unsteady breath at the contact, clattering slightly against Cyclonus’ arms as his thighs shiver. He tightens his hold, settling Tailgate firmly in his grip and silencing the sound; not because he minds, but for the sake of hearing Tailgate’s reactions, his gasps and breaths and everything yet to come, with nothing to obscure them.
He has a voice as beautiful as the rest of him, when he dares to let it flow freely, unworried about how it may sound.
Tailgate falls apart beneath him, slowly, gently. Cyclonus is unhurried, with nowhere else to be and nothing more important, he has the freedom to savor the moment and the contact between them exactly as much as he pleases. No differently than his slow journey along sharp angles and colorful reflections down sleek and imperfect plating alike, he wanders, explores with little goals more than to simply feel.
Soft, pliant, Tailgate’s mesh is plush and heated beneath his touch, conforming around the pressing strokes of his tongue. Sensations that Cyclonus can, and has, lost himself to before and likely will again, surround him like a welcome weight. The world becomes muffled as white thighs press against him, little by little, blocking other sounds that aren’t directly conducted through beautifully vibrant plating. Tailgate’s spark hammers in its casing, echoing through his frame and feeling as if it surrounds Cyclonus’ own.
A servo finds his head, planting itself there in search of an anchor. He can feel Tailgate’s fingers tremble, shaking minutely against him as they grasp helplessly, blindly, before curling around one of his horns. Tailgate does not try to pull, mindful of himself even now, no matter how much Cyclonus would not mind being put exactly where he wants him.
The grip would be enough to tell him what Tailgate wanted even if his voice did not. Fingers curling tight, shuddering gasps offered freely to the open air, Cyclonus hears his own name from somewhere above. Not yet pleading, not yet losing himself, but thin and breathless. Cyclonus presses harder, deeper, still entirely disinterested in moving any faster. He is rewarded with a pitchy, keening sound, gasped out in the vaguest shape of his name once more.
In one long, flat press, Cyclonus moves upwards, finding his mark on Tailgate’s lonely node. It makes a sharp shudder run through the heated frame beneath him, and at the edge of his vision, Tailgate’s face disappears as he flattens himself to the berth. He can imagine it clearly; that Tailgate’s face is tipped upwards, gasping, his visor a lightshow that mimics the biolights Cyclonus bullies with attention far below.
He does not let up on his node, laving firm but gentle motions against it without fully moving away. As little as he wants this to end, he knows it won’t be long; Tailgate’s voice is getting louder, clearer even through his thighs against Cyclonus’ audials, broken cries of his name that dissolve into a litany of desperate pleas.
Freeing a servo from beneath him, Cyclonus follows familiar curves, letting the shape of Tailgate’s frame guide him. From its anchor on his side, down over his aft, along that valley between thigh and torso, until he can slide long fingers right up through dripping lines of lubricant. He doesn’t need to do anything more than bring them up and follow the contours of Tailgate’s array, because whether it be by practice or that Tailgate is simply a marvel, they sink straight to the knuckle without resistance.
He can’t help but echo Tailgate’s deep, lengthy moan, feeling his digits press in so easily despite the discrepancy in their size. It will never cease to impress him, everything Tailgate can do, everything he can handle. Perhaps the greatest cruelty of the universe is the fact that Tailgate could ever believe, in any way, that he is any less than he is.
A deep, rocking press of his tongue and a spread of his fingers on the way back out, and Tailgate’s charge snaps all at once with a choked cry of his name. His calipers cinch tight, rippling in waves as if trying to draw him deeper, his mesh fluttering beneath every point of contact.
White thighs fall open, his audials freed to hear Tailgate’s gasping breaths. They slow in time with the ripples of his valve as he comes down, and Cyclonus removes his fingers gently. His struts protest as he sits upright again, stiff from sitting in the same position for so long, but he cares little when Tailgate is so beautifully laid out before him.
Relaxed, languid, Tailgate sprawls over the berth as if he is made of more rubber than metal. It’s a far cry from the stiff tension, from the upset way he’d curled in on himself earlier. This is how he should be; comfortable, pleased, and—hopefully, if Cyclonus has a say in the matter—happy.
When he leans over him, Tailgate looks up at him with that beautiful shade of deep blue that he is certain no one else has ever seen. It is for him, only in moments when he is certain he can feel Tailgate’s spark as if it were his own. He can’t help himself, leaning down to kiss him, entirely uncaring of the mask in the way.
And in truth, he would be perfectly content to stay exactly like that. To press himself bodily against Tailgate, to press kiss after kiss over his face and neck, to feel the warmth radiating from him as it slowly ticks back down degree by degree. There is little more he could want for, not when he has everything that matters right here.
Tailgate tips his head, nuzzles back at him in return. It’s gentle, soft, affectionate and perfect.
Which also just so happens to make it that much more startling when Tailgate wraps his legs around Cyclonus’ waist and pulls, pressing an uncomfortably heated panel he’d long forgotten about flush against the plush slick of Tailgate’s bared valve. The gasp that escapes Cyclonus is deep, punched out and unexpected, a jarring reminder of his own frame and the need coursing through it.
“Did you forget something?” Tailgate asks him, knowing and teasing, a lilt to his voice like he knows exactly what he’s doing, because he does. Cyclonus groans, burying his face against his beloved, terrible, wonderful menace of a conjunx’s neck.
Tailgate rolls his hips, rubbing his valve against him, and Cyclonus’ panel snaps back practically of its own free will. Not that he could complain, his spike pressurizing against puffy mesh that feels that much hotter against the delicate components compared to his fingers.
“I was—” He shudders, feeling Tailgate rub against him directly, his processor momentarily forgetting what language is. “Not intending to make this about me.”
The flicker of that beautiful, fond blue tells him that Tailgate is rolling his optics at him. Though he can’t see it, he can feel the smile Tailgate would be giving him if he could, something made of pure affection while simultaneously telling Cyclonus he’s stupid. “It’s not. This is just us.”
His legs loosen, falling away from Cyclonus’ hips. He settles back fully against the berth, strutless and spread freely like an offering, his visor sparkling with deep blue warmth. The sight of him, once more, makes Cyclonus’ spark swirl in its casing like a storm attempting to escape just to be closer to him. That magnetism pulls at him, making Cyclonus sway closer, hovering over Tailgate’s frame.
The movement almost seems to flip a switch, to confirm something unbeknownst to Cyclonus. Tailgate tilts his head, pretends to shuffle as if to get more comfortable, but really just succeeds in wiggling his hips to draw attention to his bared, still-glistening valve. He lounges, legs falling that bit more open, head tilting back, visor dimming.
Cyclonus’ spark stutters in its casing at the realization that there is nothing but confidence being shown to him. Not a shamelessness shown in the heat of the moment, desperation borne of a need for release, but something more tangible in the way Tailgate displays himself. Even if just for this moment, his doubts are forgotten, as if he has gotten even the barest glimpse of what Cyclonus wishes he could see.
If he’d thought Tailgate was beautiful before—which he was, is, and always will be, no matter what form or state he’s in—then he couldn’t have prepared himself for this. For a glimpse into a Tailgate, comfortable with himself, confident in all of his perfections and imperfections alike.
“You’re beautiful.” Cyclonus finds himself saying, once more. Tailgate doesn’t argue this time, doesn’t deflect; he makes a sound, low and needy, a shiver visibly traveling through him.
“Then show me.” Tailgate whispers back, instead.
Cyclonus will. He always will. As many times as it takes.