Work Text:
The call comes at 0121.
Minimus, megamiles away from any meaningful recharge, sneaks out the door at 0132.
He has time to think on the familiar path to the southeastern quadrant of Iacon. He can’t help but assume, slightly uncharitably, that the only reason the call went to him and not Drift was because Drift is ‘out’ with ‘old friends’ tonight, something he only knows because Rodimus told him three separate times throughout the workday, brimming with an unintelligible energy.
Minimus broached that topic delicately while they prepared to shoot, only to have Rodimus laugh for a solid two kliks and cap it off with a breathless run about the theoretical experience of taking Drift, or any of his ‘space-faring hippie pirate buds ’ to the berth.
“I mean, come on ,” Rodimus said, his vocalizer still skipping as he buffed the last of the solvent marks from his plating. “Can you imagine having to look at his face—so serene like, all the time unless he’s laughing at my jokes—while he talks dirty in his meditation voice? Drift’s hot and all, but nah, I’ll pass. Just good that he might, y’know, get some for the first time since coming home.” Rodimus coiled up the buffer cord and stowed it in its proper place. Minimus felt a small surge of pride. “I’m happy for him.”
Happy for him never fully translates to happy in general for Rodimus.
And Rodimus’ problem tonight is, in the end, achingly typical. His proposals are still being denied out of hand for a multitude of reasons. He’s convinced himself that the fluctuations in viewership are a sign that he’s losing his touch. The act of rebranding has made him question himself. He’s overwhelmed by things that Minimus knows have been blown out of proportion.
A meaner, more bitter part of Minimus says that he ought to be annoyed that Rodimus has brought him here just to whine. The rest of him, the part of him that has spent the last quarter orn familiarizing himself with Rodimus in the pursuit of job success, is well aware that often, the simple act of listening is enough to help Rodimus to sort through his minor crises.
“It’s just… it’s a lot of pressure,” Rodimus groans, a very different noise to the sort he makes on camera. Both are genuine, which has only made it more difficult for Minimus to figure him out.
Minimus chooses his words carefully. By now he is well aware that unsolicited advice is easily taken as criticism. The late night, however, has begun to wear on him. It’s cold on Rodimus’ small balcony, even sitting as close as they are in his unreasonably comfortable chairs.
“Have you considered that you might be taking on a heavier burden than you ought to?” he asks, opening a subspace hatch in pursuit of his own crutch. He reorganized it only two groons prior once he realized that recharge would not come easily and made sure that he had—ah, there it is.
“I’m not a quitter,” Rodimus snaps, lifting his helm from his hands. “Quitters don’t—is that a cygar?”
It is.
“Yes,” Minimus says. He thought that was obvious. He takes advantage of Rodimus’ momentary silence to take a slow pull. There is, as always, a mild burn to the cycling of vapor through his internals. The slight breeze takes it from his open vents.
Rodimus’ mouth opens and shuts. He looks out across the dark city.
The crawl in Minimus’ processor eases. His forgone recharge cycle is knocked further down his priority tree until he can look at Rodimus without the knee-jerk reaction of irritation.
“I, uh… didn’t know that you smoked,” Rodimus says finally.
“You’re not the only one allowed to have bad habits,” Minimus says, a little meanly. The jibe is mostly aimed at himself. His smoking is a bad habit. It is also one of the few things keeping him from tearing his family home down strut by strut in the vain hope of escape.
Rodimus takes it as he does, only nodding as his sidelong glance turns into an earnest meeting of Minimus’ optics, and Minimus thinks for a moment about how simple it had felt to lean on that crutch in company. Even Dominus, as far as he knows, has no idea. He’s not long left to ruminate.
“Can I try?” Rodimus asks, and Minimus nearly directs the smoke from the next pull into his fuel tanks. He stops it just in time, locking down the jerk of his frame.
Sharing with Rodimus.
Primus knows where his mouth has been , he thinks, and in it hears the voice of some faceless, long-deceased member of the Ambus family. No family. No crest to his name.
He’s already cross at the intrusion, even more so when he realizes how absurd the thought is. Rodimus has impeccable personal hygiene. It’s one of the things Minimus admires about him.
“If you’d like to,” Minimus says when the arguments in his processor, lasting all of a nanoklik, are settled. Admittedly, he’s curious to see what Rodimus will do. How he will react to the smoke, as bitter and admittedly unpleasant as it is. Rodimus rarely drinks energon without sweet additives.
Rodimus takes the cygar—actually a thin-rod cygarette, but Minimus is willing to let this inaccuracy slide—without more than the incidental slide of his finger against Minimus’, and looks at it like a bomb before he takes it between his lips.
It isn’t until the moment Minimus hears Rodimus’ fans spin in an in-vent that he realizes the implication hidden in ‘ can I try? ’: that Rodimus has likely never smoked a cygar before this moment.
He opens his mouth to advise Rodimus, but the inevitable beats him to it. The cycle of Rodimus’ in-vent, strong enough as to be audible, turns to a shuddering system purge. Dark grey smoke puffs from his vents as Rodimus’ vocalizer stutters in a synthesized cough. Minimus recognizes the sound, now, from the Earth programming Rodimus watches.
The worst of it over, Rodimus sits for a moment with his helm bowed and his hand over his mouth. Minimus isn’t unsympathetic. The first time he’d smoked a cygar he’d done the exact same thing.
An unintentional laugh rises in his chassis. He lets it out in a soft ex-vent, rewarded by the weight of Rodimus looking at him again. A small smile lingers on Rodimus’ mouth as he straightens, leans back in his chair.
“Lemme try again,” Rodimus says in the same moment that Minimus says: “Take two?”
Rodimus laughs out loud then, even slaps a hand on Minimus’ arm.
“Okay, wise guy. Give me some pointers.”