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“Cyclonus.”
Ah, his beloved was awake.
And crabby.
“Yes, little one?”
“I didn’t sleep well last night.” Tailgate climbed onto Cyclonus’ lap, huffily bristled and clumsy from sleep. “You gotta—you gotta get me that engex.”
“At this time of the morning?” Cyclonus almost checked his chronometer and remembered to look at the clock Whirl had given them instead. Wedding gift, he’d said dismissively. Don’t think too much of it.
“Yeah, Cyclonus, at this time in the morning. C’mon, please? I gotta have something to wake up with.”
Cyclonus stroked at his beloved’s helm distractedly. “You have nothing to do today, Tailgate. Why do you have to be awake?”
“I got things to do! I got. . . stuff. To do.” Tailgate wriggled in Cyclonus’ lap but made no attempt to get off or away from the petting. “Like. . . I was going to have, um, Verity beam out the rest of that comic series she was writing.”
“And you need to be alert for that?”
Tailgate whined. “You just don’t wanna give me engex, do you?”
“Not particularly, no.” Cyclonus smiled above Tailgate’s head. “Not at this hour of the morning.”
His beloved huffed, a wonderfully expressive huff that sputtered out beautifully through his new mouth. Another wedding gift. Not from Whirl, from Brainstorm and Ratchet. Tailgate had been delighted. Mouths were popular now, or so he’d told Cyclonus.
Cyclonus liked it, anyway.
“Well,” Tailgate was saying now, squirming in Cyclonus’ grip with a renewed vengeance, “if you won’t let me have the engex—why did we put it up so high, anyway?-- then I’m gonna have to do--”
“What?” Cyclonus released his hands as Tailgate made a real effort to get up. “Have to do. . .”
“This,” Tailgate said sweetly, and suddenly his lips were on Cyclonus’, and his new glossa was poking shyly at Cyclonus’ dentae.
“Mmf,” Cyclonus said, and once Tailgate had broken away, “How does this help you get your engex?”
“It doesn’t, I just wanna kiss you,” Tailgate said merrily, and dived back in.
It was clear there was no real heat behind their kiss, just tenderness and a need to be close to each other. Cyclonus, for his part, had no desire to take it any further.
Not at this hour of the morning, at any rate.
“Tailgate.”
Oh, he was back from his flying routine. Tailgate looked up from the screen his holomatter avatar—a new one, he and Cyc had gotten it specially made before Cyclonus’ real estate stocks had gone down— was busy scrolling though.
“Yes, Cyclonus, light of my life and highlight of my every daaAYY—whoa! What--”
Cyclonus had taken three steps forward, activated his avatar, and scooped Tailgate’s off his seat. And now he was busy kissing him again, and ooh, yeah, Tailgate was here for that.
“Hey,” he breathed, curling his human fingers through Cyclonus’ hair. That was always a nice thing to do for his conjunx, especially when he knew that the hair of the avatar was linked to the sensors that reacted when Tailgate—real Tailgate—touched real Cyclonus’ horns. “What’s up?”
“I was thinking during the flight,” Cyclonus said softly, his voice muffled by Tailgate’s shoulder. “Remembering.”
Oh, that wasn’t usually a good thing. “Remembering what?”
Cyclonus sighed, sitting down with Tailgate again. “Everything. But mostly—mostly when you were dead. When I thought you were dead.”
He was scowling again. That was a long, emotionally compromising sentence, and he was scowling again to try and build up some walls of dignity. That wouldn’t do.
“Well, I’m not. Dead, I mean. I’m not, Cyclonus.” Tailgate cradled the angular, strangely beautiful face that was so unfamiliar and yet so Cyclonus—him, his conjunx, no matter how surreal that was to remember every day. “Look at me.”
Cyclonus’ face cracked, just a little, into a smile. He reached up and brushed the short stubble of pale hair Tailgate’s avatar sported. “I am. Every day, I get to look at you.”
Tailgate snorted softly. “You’re so--”
“Mmn. Not now.” Cyclonus gathered Tailgate up in his arms, squeezing the softness of his avatar tight. “I want to hold you now.”
Yeah, snuggles were good. Snuggles were excellent.
Tailgate cuddled up inside Cyclonus’ arms and closed his eyes. Cyclonus’ avatar smelled like soft heat and air, the solid light refracting and bending around olfactory sensors. It was really nice. There were worse places to rest for a bit.
Avatars disappeared when you fell asleep, but he wouldn’t put it past real Cyclonus to be holding real Tailgate when he woke up.
“Hey.”
“Hello.”
Tailgate grinned up at Cyclonus—still reveling in the fact that he could, in fact, grin. “I got us first-row seats to a real Tetrahexian starset.”
“Oh, did you?” Cyclonus smiled, tracing his hand over Tailgate’s jaw.
“Oh, yeah. There was a whole bunch of mecha tryin’ to get our seats, but I fought ‘em all off.” Tailgate betrayed his story with a wink and a giggle he couldn’t help. “Hundreds of ‘em, all by myself.”
Cyclonus shook his helm with mock disapproval. “I thought you didn’t do that anymore.”
Oh, Primus, he was being silly. Cyclonus was playing with him. Tailgate felt his spark leap in a ridiculous delight. It always surprised him, how much he loved Cyclonus. How much he was allowed to love Cyclonus, every single day, without it being ripped from him like he’d come to expect.
“Just for you, Cyc.”
Cyclonus stroked his face gently. “Let us go, then.”
Of course, there was no crowd at their private cliff, and no angry mecha who wanted their seats. Just him, and Cyclonus, together, holding each other close and watching the star fade away down the horizon, leaving trails of gold and red in its wake.
“Do you ever think about him?” Cyclonus murmured.
Somehow, Tailgate knew. “Rodimus? Yeah, sometimes.”
Cyclonus hummed and said no more, but both of them turned slightly to look at the stars above. Their one-time captain was out there somewhere, still traveling the stars.
Tailgate turned in Cyclonus’ lap, putting a hand to his beloved’s face. “And are you happy? Cyclonus?”
Cyclonus smiled down at him, his expression soft and affectionate. “With you. With you here, I will always be happy, even if the star burns from the sky and the planets succumb to its demise.”
“Aw. Cyclonus.”
Cyclonus bent to kiss him, slow and gentle, his lips moving softly against Tailgate’s new ones. “And I love you. I’m so lucky to have you.”
“You know, there was a time I would have killed to hear those words.” Tailgate smiled against the kiss, reaching up to grasp at one of his beloved’s horns.
“You don’t have to. You never will have to again. I will tell you every day,” Cyclonus kissed his shoulder gently, “and every hour, until you tire of it; and then I will tell you in actions and love you with every fiber of my soul, forever.”
“Do you promise?”
“A warrior’s bond is not easily broken. I promise.”
Tailgate smiled up at him, happiness flooding through his spark and showing out of his eyes. “I love you.”
Cyclonus bent his head, touched it to Tailgate’s. He said nothing, and they stayed that way—close, together, feeling, holding each other through the set of the star. As the red-gold of the sky faded into purple and blue, there was quiet; and Cyclonus and Tailgate kissed each other once more, living out their happy ending.