Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This was a bad idea.

Orion Pax jolted awake and rubbed his temples in frustration. He was hoping for a normal night of recharging, but his erratic schedule had made it difficult for him to relax at all, really. Usually his nights involved tampering with the station to feed him the highest charge possible to hit about eighty percent, dash off to do whatever — archive-rummaging, information-batering and the like — and then getting back in time to plug himself in for a couple of joors before opening shift. He swiped away the myriad of pings from his internal system warnings about his terrible recharge schedule; it has become noise to him at this point. Incoming messages from Darkwing about his tardiness, and doctor notes about his overworked frame were subsequently swiped away. The only thing on Orion’s mind, which is what probably prevented his mind from fully defragmenting, was none other than the bot positioned across from him. 

Orion squinted, trying to focus his optics on his best friend, illuminated by the faint flicker from the arcade machine at the far end of their dorm. D-16 looked deep into recharge, his frame still, and Orion’s optics wandered, trying to capture every scratch and dent, every sign of weathering on his Dee’s appearance. The overexertion of their work, the hard labour that D-16 put a hundred and ten percent into, showed clearly on his slightly rusted frame. Orion was suddenly overwhelmed with feelings he couldn’t really describe. Annoyance, probably. Even sleeping, Dee had that stupid, serious face that doesn’t know fun. His optics are closed, but Orion can imagine that calm, blue shine that pierced and saw right through Orion and his words of deceit. Most of all, Dee had that stupid giant helm, within which Orion could never parse what happened in it. Some kind of electric charge firing, some kind of filing, that made Dee jump to those stupid, naïve conclusions about himself and his predicament. That stupid helm that contained stupid thoughts that made Dee toil and work hard every single cycle until his gears stripped in hopes of a promotion that he will never reach. He nearly collapsed into the recharge bunk, and managed to plug in only because of Orion’s help. With another connecting cord plugged into his wrist, Orion did an absent-minded override to allow D-16 to reveal his recharge socket and stuck it in. D-16 trusted him for these special cases, which made Orion’s spark hum with a feeling that he carefully shelved into the back of his mind, next to ‘don’t even think about it’ and under ‘completely and utterly stupid.’ By the time that Orion jerked himself out of those thoughts, his audials only processed a half-murmur of ‘Thanks, Pax…’ before Dee promptly, and stupidly drifted off before Orion even had the chance to insult him. 

That was probably also why D-16 didn’t even stir when Orion, without even realising it, shifted in his recharge bunk, and took a step forwards. A loud thunk resounded throughout the room, and the screech of cords stretching could also be heard, loud enough for some of his neighbours to shift. Orion swallowed, and resetted his vocalizer, although that didn’t really do anything. Primus below, I moved without even thinking about it. If it weren’t for the fact that everyone was recharging, he would have kicked himself. 

Orion slowly moved his hand near his recharge plug, and twisted it as gently as he possibly could. Another big, red pop-up clouded his vision, something or the other about proceeding will leave him with incomplete defragmentation. Whatever. It was in his way. With firm and determined annoyance, Orion declined the warning, and his best friend’s comforting face flitted back into view. His optics fixed on D-16, Orion disengaged the lock on the cord, and carefully placed it back into its housing in the bunk. Nobody seemed to notice the noise. Good. 

Orion took another shaky step forward, the gears in his clumsy body strained to match the elegant maneuvers that the bot tried to employ. As the master of ignoring pop-ups, Orion shook off another ping requesting to turn on his fans as his body was starting to heat up, both from the anxiety and also the strain of his frame slowly lowering his very heavy peds to the floor. Soft little tinks echoed throughout the room as Orion shuffled very, very carefully towards D-16, his body poised to run back to his recharge bunk should anyone wake up for a midnight refuel. 

Orion was so focused on literally everything else — the noises from his peds, the heating frame, the recharging bots around him — he didn’t even notice that he was now inches away from D-16’s face. If he took another step forward, which he surely might have, he probably would have knocked helms with Dee, or maybe even kissed him. Some part of him kind of wished that he did, just to see how responsive D-16 is when recharging. Knocking helms hard enough most certainly would have woken him up. A kiss? Now that would be interesting. Orion’s hot breath and heating frame wafted off of him in such a way that he wondered if D-16 would be able to feel it. Orion could see the detailing of D-16’s face now, small scratches on his cheek from flecks of debris flying against his face whilst drilling for energon. Orion, without thinking, traced the tip of one of his servo digits along the small imperfections, now secretly wishing that he was a medic, so he’d be able to feel every small indent on D-16’s face, and hold it between his palms as he polished him up. Another ping floated into view stopped Orion in his tracks. He flicked it away with annoyance. It was another warning about his core temperature. He didn’t even know why he was heating up even more, merely just from thinking about caring for his friend. Orion withdrew his servo digits reluctantly regardless, knowing that a flaming hot touch most definitely would wake D-16. 

Right. He had been almost entirely acting on impulse Orion nearly forgot the entire reason why he wasn’t able to recharge at all this cycle. He glanced down at the base of his servo, where a socket still resided — the same socket where he inserted a cord from D-16 to override his internal programming. Orion was not unfamiliar with accessing other bots’ data. He had been doing it all the time, to extract information and gather together a case against the corrupt system. Blackmailing Darkwing takes a certain level of confidence — confidence that has to be backed by evidence. Tangible evidence. He had long lost hope in Sentinel having the best interests of Cybertron in mind. If he did, he would be actually listening, talking to the miners; instead of going on expensive expeditions funded by their hard work to look for some artefact lost to history. Orion is not one for throwing caution to the wind for miracles. The only thing Orion can trust is information. The only leverage Orion could have is information. And a lot of bluffing. Orion didn’t know the details of any kind of real dirty work, but he sure did compile accounts from all the miners in his sect of petty violations, all streamlined into one encrypted file ready to send to the Cybertronian Daily and the media stations. They’d eat that stuff up for breakfast. 

So, when Orion connected up to D-16 for that manual override, that wasn’t really new to him, or difficult in the slightest. In fact, usually other bots struggle more, and put up more firewall defenses that he had to break into. Contrary to that, Orion slid easily into Dee’s mind, with pings that turned from red to green one by one as he allowed Orion full access. It was probably the easiest hacking job Orion ever had to do. However, it was after he hit ‘consent’ on revealing the recharge socket, for a brief nano-klik, he felt a surge of warmth wash over his frame. Although similar, it certainly wasn’t the feeling he compartmentalized beforehand. It was flowing directly through the cord, gratitude, kindness, and a fuzzy crackling feeling he couldn’t pinpoint going straight to his helm, his spark, his programming. And it went as quickly as it came, as Orion quickly, frantically, lost his cool and yanked the jack from out of his wrist. 

Now here he was, standing inches away from D-16, Dee, his best friend. His best friend also had that weird feeling, the one where Orion felt whenever he caught Dee’s optic, or when their servos brushed a little too close, or when their frames bumped into each other squeezing into the mines. He had stored it, again, very neatly, and very carefully in the back of his helm. In dark crevices that no bot can ever reach. As a bot hacker himself, he made sure of it. But, the aftertaste of D-16’s unknown feeling wasn’t like Orion's. Whenever Orion experienced that warmth, there was a twist in the pit of his stomach that made him feel like he was going to heave up energon. The warmth from D-16, however, was just a nice, pleasant feeling, that ebbed and flowed and felt like the eternal lights of Iacon city. 

Orion felt himself shaking as he reached for the jack that dangled from his best friend’s frame. He didn’t even bother to pull it out when D-16 went offline, probably because Orion’s thinking was almost entirely clouded by annoyance and rage when he propped D-16’s floppy body up and marched to his own recharge unit. Grumbling something about how Dee is even able to survive without him, before setting himself up for shut down.

Clearly, that didn’t work. And that’s why he was back here. The pull of that warm, fuzzy feeling felt intoxicating. Orion obviously didn’t expect it, if he did, he probably would have tried to capture it, then store it into a precious part of his mind for easy access. But now, he has resorted to this. It shouldn’t be hard — again, it’s not like he hasn’t done it before — but this felt different. Such a breach of privacy with his best friend felt wrong. But was anything Orion doing ever right? He slacked off work, breached archives, sold sensitive information, forged contraband… Orion erased the moral part of his programming a long time ago. He couldn’t even remember if he had one to begin with.

So why was this so difficult?

The bot below him stirred a little again, mumbling in his recharge, something about telling Orion to pay attention. The metal between his optics crinkled with mild frustration but mostly worry. Orion couldn’t help but let a small smile play on his lips. 

Cute.  

Orion’s servos flew to his mouth and squinted his optics shut. He didn’t say it out loud but it sure felt like he did. His core temperature ticked upwards another small notch. Primus, if I’m crushing on my best friend like a little sparkling, blast out my core instead. Orion swiped away yet another ping, opening up his audials and shutting his optics briefly to ground himself. He felt the heat slowly waft off of his frame and stabilize in temperature. Orion turned on his optics again, and quickly flitted back down to the dangling jack, afraid that staring anywhere else would cause him to overheat again. He reached for the cord, secretly hoping that Dee, or anyone else really, would wake up. Or maybe Darkwing could stomp in and bust him down a couple tiers right then and there. Anything but the anxiety of what he was about to do. Anxiety he didn’t even know the reasoning or source of. His servo digits made contact with the cold surface of the jack.

No sound or movement. 

Dee had already fallen back into his still, recharged state. He actually ended up turning on his side a little, revealing the port that the jack was connected to. This solidified Orion’s resolve. What the hell, sure. I’m here already; I might as well. Orion slid the jack into the socket on his wrist.

Immediately, he was met with a series of more pings in his field, blue in colour in comparison to his amber interface. Those were Dee’s. They were flickering impressions of D-16’s automated firewalls — only the very weakest ones that his system managed to restore before D-16 went into full recharge mode. If Orion gave it a little nudge here, a rewrite of the code there, he could easily bypass all of it.

Orion shook his head from those thoughts. Accessing this felt bad enough. Again that twisting feeling in his abdomen, that made him want to hurl. He’s not going to go farther than that. He can’t violate the trust of his best emotional confidant. He finds a lot of use in Dee, and Dee most definitely takes care of Orion more than the other way around. Especially considering tonight that his defragmentation is going to be less than ideal.

Orion moved his way through the pop-ups, trying to figure out what he could parse with the very limited access he had. He felt the twist in his stomach tighten, that feeling flowed in through his cord. He looked around for the source of it, to see that the emotion was covered by a flickering blue ping. Well, that made sense. Defragmenting was still classified information and systems needed to be secure so that it can be naturally filed into long term recall. No matter, Orion was getting into his usual rhythm, so this was a piece of cake. He thrummed his fingers against air as he swiped the ping away, breaking into the terrible feeling that his best friend was experiencing in defragmentation. His friend was in trouble. He’s just trying to help. Orion reasoned, hiding the fact that tampering with someone’s defragmentation is a complete no-go, even for most medics. What loomed into view sucked him in with such gravity that he felt sparks going straight into his frame, and suddenly he was a bystander in his best friend’s recharge memory. 

This was early into a cycle, where both Orion and D-16 were punching in for their shift. Sentinel Prime upped the quota by another fraction, and explained that he needed to bring more troops to the surface and expand the search radius for the matrix. Obviously Orion thought it was a load of bull, but looking at Dee’s excited face about contributing directly to Sentinel’s noble efforts made his face soften. Seeing himself through D-16’s eyes was a completely different experience. He saw his own face, foreign yet familiar, fight to hide the rage he felt towards the system; towards Sentinel for lying to his friend. The only dead giveaway was the broken optic in the right of his face, which flickered between amber and orange and deep red. Dee obviously noticed that, and quickly placed a hand on Orion’s faceplate, his fingers caressed his cheek, which seemed to calm down the dream version of Orion. The dream version of Orion smiled. A genuine smile that made Orion’s spark spin so fast he felt dizzy. How completely out of character.

Orion was always the touchier bot, so it must have taken a lot of willpower for Dee to do that. He could feel a relaxed feeling from within the bot however — maybe because this is just a dream, and D-16 could do whatever he wanted. Orion’s programming flipped a little, threatening to exit the scene. Maybe this isn’t for him. It felt dirty, to see how his best friend yearned for him. Orion felt even a little disgusted. To love was a weakness.

Before the scene could have gone on any more intimately, they were called out by Elita to go into the mines. They flew out on their jetpacks, and Orion relaxed into the usual banter of their journey, repeating Elita’s… Affirmations and giggling at each other for doing it in increasingly weirder voices. That warm, fuzzy feeling crept up into his helm, and he felt it flow in through his connection with D-16, too. It felt like it was going all over his frame, into every crevice and joint, every gear and strip. 

It felt like heaven.

Orion held onto that feeling for as long as he could. Basking in the warmth; in complete contrast to the bleak and cold temperatures and lights of the mines. 

He felt both himself and D-16’s feelings falter and sink when they arrived, and picked up a mining drill each. Orion noticed that D-16’s optic field never left Orion, whilst Orion was staring down at the drill, then at the cave entrance. He never looked at D-16 once after they had arrived, and he felt a stronger twisting sensation from Dee. Orion’s spark skipped a horrible beat. 

Dee only had optics for him.

A sense of possessive pride washed over Orion, as he focused more of his processing power on taking in the scene.

It looked like dream Orion was lost in thought again. He could tell because Dee’s optics focused almost entirely on Orion’s defect one. It was blinking red, glowing against the blue energon light from the cave entrance. D-16’s feelings twisted tighter with anxiety.

Oh. Optics for me, but not like that.

Orion let out a disappointed sigh without even realising. He was just making sure Orion’s not causing trouble, especially with a giant potential weapon in hand. He saw Dee follow dream Orion’s gaze, which was pointed straight at Darkwing. If it weren’t for the fact that they were cogless miners, Orion could have probably pierced Darkwing through the spark with those optics. Orion felt a rising panic in D-16’s programming, several pings floating into view trying to calculate the next best move to stop Orion. One of them lighted green, and before dream Orion or Orion in person could even react, Dee yanked him by the servo and dragged him into the cave entrance with extraordinary strength. The clanking of their peds echoed farther and farther down the pathway carved towards the core of Primus. Sparks flew from Orion’s peds dragging across the floor of the mine, but D-16 didn’t even care. He stole a final glance towards a puzzled Darkwing and an equally puzzled Elita, before both of them shook their heads in annoyance. Orion could feel them say that without even guessing: always these two.

The other miners in the cave were too focused on their work to hear the devastating event that D-16 just prevented.

‘Dee, what the hell?’ Dream Orion spoke, and Orion wanted to close his optics and cringe. 

‘You were trying to have a go at Darkwing, weren’t you?’ D-16 hissed, his optics narrowed into a blue slit, his denta visible from the refractory light inside of the cave.

‘I planned no such thing.’ Dream Orion pouted. Watching himself do that was about to make Orion hurl for real.

D-16 pinched his optics and sighed. By the time D-16 looked up again, Dream Orion had cocked his head to the side, his peds slowly shuffling towards the exit of the cave. His defected optic flickered again, its usual amber.

D-16 marched over to dream Orion, and tackled him to the ground. Some other miners exchanged looks, others just rolled their eyes. Orion felt it again. Always these two. In the tussle, D-16 easily overpowered Orion, for Orion’s frail frame often had very little real energon or charge running through it, again, because of his horrible defragmentation routine. D-16 securely managed to grab hold onto Orion’s squirming frame, his legs between Orion’s, and their servos intertwined. Dream Orion looked down, then up at Dee with a hint of mischief. 

‘Oh. I didn’t know you wanted to interface that badly. At least take me out to dinner first.’

Orion felt D-16’s field get warmer in hue, and his systems heating from both shame and confusion. The spectator Orion placed one of his servos on D-16’s resting shoulder, feeling the heat accumulate in his physical state as well. So easily flustered, Orion thought to himself. He wasn’t sure if it was endearment or mockery.

Orion didn’t manage to process that thought fully because Dee immediately reached for the giant mining drill that was dropped in their little fight, and hauled it over to place squarely in the midsection of dream Orion beneath him.

‘Now stay. Here.’ D-16 said through gritted denta. Even if Orion could not see it, he could feel Dee’s optics smouldering. Oh. He was mad .

Dream Orion looked a little shocked, his optics turned a mellow yellow colour. He stopped struggling, his head tilted to the side in a docile manner. Orion felt a pang of guilt stabbing at Dee’s frame, but he marched on, getting to work alongside Jazz. 

Well, this was kind of the usual stuff. This defragmentation sequence was probably one of the first times Dee pulled this on Orion. Orion had stopped trying to kill Darkwing ever since he began trading with him as a client. Being pinned down like this left Orion upset and anxious, sure, but not because of anything other than the fact that he doesn’t get to be at Dee’s side. And Dee always came back for him, usually lifting the part away, chiding and scolding Orion whilst he shut off his audials and smirked at Dee’s angry face. Orion could have disconnected from D-16 at this point. But he waited, hoping that maybe that warm feeling could return when Dee comes back for him after the shift.

It was a particularly long work period. But in defragmentations mundane things like that end up being skipped or blurred one way or another. Soon it was the end of the cycle, and everyone packed to leave.

D-16 slowly walked out with the tunnel rumbling to close behind him. Orion felt a little bit of puzzlement from the mech. Was there something he missed? D-16 hauled the drill into the storage box, and looked down at his servos, which somehow housed… An amber, defected optic, flickering in the darkness, and leaking energon. Is that Paxes eye? Another panicked feeling spiked in D-16’s field, and several burning red pop-ups began appearing in his vision. He turned to look at the tunnel entrance, which started collapsing piece by piece.

Frag.

D-16 set off into a run, stumbling and scrambling to get back up as his clumsy, rusty peds caught on nothing and everything.

PAX?

D-16’s entire field turned red. Deep red. The miners looked at him with seeming confusion, mockery, annoyance, all combined. They seemed to say: wasting your spark to save Orion Pax. How pathetic. Orion felt his insides pang. Looking into his best friend’s helm didn’t feel so fun anymore.

Frag FRAG FRAG PAX IS STILL IN THERE ORION ORION PAX CAN YOU HEAR ME PLEASE

All Dee could choke out was static. His field was filled with static. Orion felt panic and guilt so extreme and intense it felt painful for his system to keep up. Orion felt frozen. This defragmentation spiralled so fast he felt dizzy. Maybe he could access Dee’s memory banks, and select something better—

Dee’s optics locked firmly on the cave entrance, and Orion couldn’t look away; because soon, the dream, forgotten, trapped Orion emerged into view. 

PAX. PLEASE. PLEASE RUN. RUN. RUN TO ME. I’LL CATCH YOU. I PROMISED TO HAVE YOUR BACK AND NOW YOUR BACK IS IN THE CAVE AND I FORGOT ABOUT IT I’M SO SO SORRY I’M SORRY I’M S

Again, all Dee choked out was static. This Orion looked completely foreign. One servo appeared into the light, and dragged his frame forwards. He had joints missing and sparks flying out of every crevice. A black, dead part where his optic was missing, and his jaw hung agape, showing his intake and the glossa hanging out grossly and limply with no denta to hold it back. A red glow was emanating from his functional optic as he continued to claw forwards, his servo digits leaving dark marks in the floor. The mining drill on top of him looked like it was slowly crushing him.

H.. Help me, Dee.

Orion’s words cut through loud and clear. This clearly was a dream, because Orion’s voice box was damaged beyond repair. And yet, neither spectator shook themselves out of the scene. Another large piece of debris fell onto Orion’s helm with a sickening crack, and cables and splintered pieces of metal flew out, one grazing D-16 on the forehead. A trickle of energon flowed into his optic, staining it blue. 

Dee . Orion croaked, his voice full of static. D-16 ran towards him faster.

Right before D-16 managed to reach the cave entrance once more, a strong, powerful ped came down on his spinal strut, and slammed D-16 onto the floor, his chin screeched in protest and his optic most certainly cracked. D-16 moaned in pain. Elita’s cold voice resounded in their audials. ‘Don’t even think about saving that worthless hunk of metal.”

D-16 looked helplessly to her, then back to the cave entrance. Orion was so close to him. Orion’s servo reached out, sparks bouncing off of the debris and flying towards Dee’s horrified face,

I’m so lonely. It’s so cold here. You said you wouldn’t leave me behind. You did. You left me here to die.

One final piece of the cave collapsed, crashing straight into the neck cables of Orion. His helm flew outwards, smacking itself against D-16’s face, before rolling lifelessly onto the floor, sending small sparks in its wake. 

Monster Orion’s red optic bore into Dee’s spark.

You did this. 

And then several windows and pop-ups and pings rushed forth, faster than Orion could keep up. Each of them blue in hue initially then turning red, his vision entirely clouded by warning pings and loud buzzers. Orion felt light, his entire consciousness rocked backwards as Dee’s system pushed out the foreign invader, the firewalls blocking each of Orion’s attempts at access. Orion caught briefly the looming statement INITIATING DEFRAGMENTATION EMOTIONAL PROTECTION PROTOCOL. WAKING HOST… before he quickly ejected the plug from his socket.

Orion took a step back. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. D-16’s optics shot open, a frantic, shimmering blue light pierced through Orion’s. For a flickering moment, Orion thought about confessing everything, apologising, grovelling at Dee’s peds. Anything but the terrible terrible hurt and guilt Dee felt for Orion dying. Orion was fine with dying, He didn’t like that other people felt… Complex about it. And most of all, most deplorably, he’d rather combust than process the love that Dee felt for him. 

‘You’re… Awake.’ Orion said instead, stating the obvious.

D-16 shuffled forwards, and threw his arms around his best friend. The recharge cables groaned as they stretched for D-16 to meet Orion’s embrace. With a hiss, they were disconnected from D-16’s socket and he fully wrapped his servos around Orion. He squeezed so hard Orion could feel his frame denting.

‘Yeah. I’m awake.’ D-16 mumbled into Orion’s shoulder pad. ‘And you’re okay.’

Orion chuckled a little, ‘Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be. Unless you left me back in the mines again.’ He jabbed, and D-16 only hugged tighter.

‘This isn’t funny.’ D-16’s voice crackled with static beneath him, and Orion immediately felt horrible for saying that. ‘I thought— I was so sure that—‘

‘Shh, it’s okay.’ Orion pulled away and held D-16’s faceplate in his servos. He imitated what he saw Dee do to him in his dream, tracing a thumb next to his optic, and selfishly lingered on one of the scratches on his face, to feel that imperfection. ‘You’re okay.’ He added, dumbly, seeing no response.

D-16 trembled in his servos. A couple streaks of tears made its way down his face. He suddenly seemed so small, so weak. Nothing like the bot that easily overpowered him several times earlier. D-16 leaned into the touch, and Orion thought that his spark might leap out of his chest.

‘Were you watching me recharge?’

That question jolted Orion out of the moment. His field flooded with panic. He didn’t really expect that question. Dee eyed him with a genuine curiosity in his optic. It didn’t look like an interrogation and it didn’t look like Dee noticed Orion’s… Ah, little intrusion. 

Orion swallowed. Was his intake this dry before? ‘I, uh… I woke you up.’ He lied, ‘You looked like you were having a hard time, a, uh. Bad defragmentation. It looked rough so I woke you up.’

D-16 looked a little skeptical, and tilted his head further into Orion’s servo, giving it some thought. Orion once again thought about confessing his sins and then promptly throwing himself down to Primus below. 

‘Thanks for waking me up, then.’ Dee smiled at him warmly. Was the room getting hotter? Orion felt so much love and gratitude flooding into his field he looked away as quickly as he could. 

D-16 buried his head once more into Orion’s arms. ‘You have no idea how bad of a defrag that was.’

Orion had every idea about how bad it was.

But he didn’t say that. He couldn’t.

He just held his best friend’s helm against his spark until he drifted off into recharge again in the bunk. He did another quick override, sticking the recharge cord into his friend’s frame. Not any longer than he needed to, not tonight — maybe some other cycle. He watched his best friend’s peaceful face, seemingly in a better defragmentation than the last. 

Dee can handle whatever happens to Orion in the morning. Orion’s used to running on little to no juice anyway. 

Besides, this is nicer. Watching his friend recharge. 

If only they could stay like this forever.

Chapter Text

At the start of the cycle, Orion felt himself being powered up to Dee tapping his face, then the panel concealing his recharge socket. Orion, in a daze full of fatigue, allowed his panel to slide open for D-16 to insert the plug in his recharge station. Orion’s optic field immediately gained some more clarity, his optics opened a little wider as he quickly pushed himself up and away from the embrace he was in with Dee during the defrag. He looked around the barracks; it’s getting busy – bots were seen walking past their recharge station in a hurry and focus on showing up to their shift. Out of the corner of his optic, he could feel Dee sag in what seems like… disappointment?

‘Thanks.’ Orion mumbled, rubbing one of his optics with the base of his servo, hoping that some of the sleep can go with it.

‘I cannot believe you didn’t go back to your recharge station.’ D-16 said incredulously, probably half to himself. Orion tried to compose an articulate and logical response to explain away his actions, but he was soon interrupted by the fact that D-16 had moved extremely close to him. Their fields nearly overlapped with each other as D-16’s inner servo reached around Orion’s waist and pulled Orion’s frame closer to his; almost in protest to Orion’s overt attempt at enlarging their proximity. Dee’s face and optics were burning with determination, but his face was unreadable. Orion rejected a request to turn his cooling fans on.

Is he going to kiss me?

Orion shook himself out of that thought. Matching intakes was an ancient tradition of more organic life that Cybertronians seldom partook in. He thought about doing it to Dee just to see his reaction last night, but that’s only because he read extensively about it in the archives, with visual demonstrations. He had strict academic curiosity to it, and he doubted that Dee with full recharges every cycle with nothing but work on his mind would have any idea what kissing even was, or what it meant. Orion gulped a little and thought about making some kind of flirtatious quip embarrass Dee out of doing… Whatever he is planning to. Something like ‘eager, are we?’ would have done the trick. The words did not come. Orion’s glossa darted out to wet his lips momentarily. He placed both of his servos tentatively on D-16’s chest plate and looked up to meet D-16’s gaze. He watched his best friend’s optics move between Orion’s lips and his face, before settling on his lips again. Orion dimmed his optics, trying not to allow any other speculation in his head to run any further.

Orion then felt something touch his lips, its temperature matched with his. His optics immediately brightened, trying to visually process what just touched him. Big mistake, because what met his gaze was Dee’s really pretty bright azure optics staring right back at him with a really really soft feeling in his field and it’s really nice and warm and it’s like Orion’s body right now because he hasn’t turned on his cooling fans and the thing that’s touching his lips is moving and it’s Dee’s servo digit and it’s as warm as his lips wait no it’s warmer and really really nice and if Orion closed the distance right now with his intake he can meet Dee in the middle and

‘So you’re finally bedding with the snake himself, eh?’ A voice piped up from the barracks, and Orion’s pure and utter rage kicked his cooling fans into gear, steam dissipated from his body with a loud hiss. He could feel Dee’s body get hotter in embarrassment, quickly pushing away Orion to preserve some semblance of dignity. Orion’s memory banks weren’t working well enough to remember what their name is.

Anyway, aft-bot turned his head and seemed to try to call some of his other buds over. ‘Hey! Somebody actually chose to sleep with that Darkwing spike-sucker!’

Orion felt like he was able to bite that bot’s armour off. Dee looked at him with confusion which made Orion’s system heat even further.

‘It’s not like that.’ Orion snapped quickly, trying to shut D-16 up from further lines of questioning. He wanted to protect Dee for as long as possible, and hearing that Orion was risking his life and his career everyday conversing with their superior who very much would rather they died was more complicated than anything else.

‘It so is like that. Why else does everyone get treated like scrap whilst you get a lovely courteous talk with him every time he comes around?’ The voice taunted.

Orion stole a quick look from Dee and observed his frown lines deepening. ‘It’s not interfacing. We just talk.’ He said quietly, trying to assure Dee. ‘Nothing happens other than talking.’ Orion repeated, which probably made it sound worse.

Orion shrugged off D-16’s servo brushing his armour. He didn’t like how Dee was treating him gently just because of some kind of misunderstanding. Orion ejected his recharge cable as he stomped over to the bot, his vision immediately garbled by static and he felt energy leave his joints from the lack of voltage. Orion pushed through, not allowing his knees to buckle to ruin his attempt at looking intimidating. He waded his way through the crowd, his optics darkening and boring down at the bot. He tried not to derive too much satisfaction from watching the bot slowly cower more and more and look smaller and smaller.

By the time he got there, Orion grabbed the bot by their chassis, fingers hooked into the cog hole. His servos dug so deep he briefly heard a gasp of pain and the sound of metal denting in his audials. Music to his ears. Orion resisted a grin fighting its way to spread across his face. He brought the bot close, their noses nearly touching. Hot steam was practically spilling out of his intake.

‘Go on. Call your friends again. Or I’ll ask Darkwing to finish you off personally, since you’re so interested in whose spike I’m sucking.’

The bot yelped and begged for mercy, his servos clenching and clawing at Orion’s servos. Orion let him go. The bot immediately scrambled away, his friends picking him up and giving Orion dirty looks. The busy barracks suddenly halted, silent and poised and the crackling tension in the air was palpable. A fight looked like it was about to break out, but a call from the announcer summoned everyone to their shift.  

✦✧✦

Orion unloaded the mining equipment from his cart, his mind clouded with thoughts and feelings and extreme paranoia. He looked at D-16, and D-16 looked back from across the room with persistent worry clouding his face. However, his best friend was quickly pulled aside by chattering bots. The enemy.

Was Orion this possessive before? The pointed looks and whispers of the other bots, who said that he killed Jazz are now often banding around Dee, patting a servo on his shoulder plate, pulling him in by the waist and whispering something to him. Were they like this before? Maybe Orion never realised. It sure was obvious now, after the little discovery that they were recharging together. More bots looked scared. They look like they're trying to protect Dee from him. Taking Dee away from him. Did they do this whenever Dee left him in the dark, in that cave buzzing with energon and veins and arteries of a god long gone and uncaring? Does Dee just humour them or does he actually believe them? They're planting seeds of betrayal, burrowing into his field-lines and below his armour and into his spark. Thinking about it made Orion's blood simmer. He should just tear open Dee's chassis and inspect the spark himself to see if it spun for him or not. Orion declined a request to open his vents. 

A reassuring servo rested on Orion’s shoulder pad which made him jump. When did Dee separate with the others and walk over? He didn’t even notice.

'Look, if Darkwing is forcing you to do something you don't want to, you can just tell me, you know that right?' Dee’s whispering was soft, caring, and warm. It made Orion angrier, thinking that D-16 probably extended that care to the bot he just threatened at the barracks. It wasn’t only for Orion. He didn’t care about staying on Orion’s side.

Orion swivelled and grabbed D-16 by the shoulder plates and used so much force it made D-16 yelp. 

'He's not doing anything.' He said through gritted denta. He was being as quiet as he could, but he still felt like he was being listened in on. D-16 let out a gasp and then a whimper of pain, and Orion hurriedly released him, realising that his frame was so hot he was warping D-16’s shoulder pads. Smoke poured out from his servos, and Orion guiltily turned on his vents, where steam hissed out at an alarming rate. He stole another glance at D-16 and saw the same fear in his eyes. They really are getting to Dee. Orion took in a long, deep breath closed his optics, before opening them again.

'Besides, what can you do? We're cog-less miners with limited options.’ Dee just looked at him with even deeper hurt and sympathy. That left Orion confused, before the horrible realisation slowly dawned on him that he had quoted Darkwing, which D-16 had no doubt also noticed.

‘Do you actually believe that?’ Dee asked, his servo on Orion’s shoulder. Orion shrugged him off, and didn’t reply. ‘Just remember, I've got your back, okay? Darkwing is scary but maybe you can talk to me about it, if we can’t do anything about it.’

He reached out a servo to Orion’s left cheek. After last night’s dream, Orion realised that is code that his defected optic was betraying him. He smacked D-16’s servo away, hurt and annoyed that his friend could see right through him. D-16 withdrew, his blue eyes flickering in a pain that Orion couldn’t describe. ‘I’ll give you your space then. I’m sorry.’ D-16 mumbled and walked off with his mining drill.

He never spoke to Orion for the rest of the cycle. It left a gnawing feeling in Orion so painful and terrible he’d rather D-16 screamed and yelled at him and got angry at him.

But D-16 was too kind, and Orion too stubborn.

✦✧✦

Orion peeked open an optic from his recharge bunk. He looked around the quiet barracks, just to make sure that no bot noticed him leaving. Orion exhaled in annoyance. What did it matter. People think that Darkwing is fragging him anyway. He ejected the wire from his bunk, and quietly padded his way out onto the rooftop. The sleepless Iacon city looked beautiful on nights like these. Orion could smell fried metal and energon wafting up from the streets below, and a coolness in the air that solar cycles didn’t have, when traffic soared overhead. He could take in this view forever, sitting alone and dangling his peds off the edge of the building. He felt small, but not in the demeaned kind when he talked to Darkwing or Elita but feeling like he’s a part of the beating heart of Cybertron itself. He should bring Dee along to show him at some point; when he’s less mad at him and less worried. He let out a soft breath, watching the mist waft out from his intake and into the streets below.

Orion felt a looming presence behind him and a hot breath against his left cheek. Orion didn’t turn, his eyes focused on the road below, wondering how painful the fall would be if he slipped off. ‘You’re here early.’

The gruff voice let out a huff of annoyance. ‘And you’re never on time.’

Orion moved his defected optic vaguely in the bot’s direction. ‘Ambushing me on my blind side?’

‘You’re lucky I was willing to let you skip Primus knows how many shifts for Ratchet to fix you up.’ Servo digits walked itself along Orion’s shoulder pad. Once again, Orion didn’t so far as flinch. The same servo flew to Orion's face and yanked it to the left, the creak of a couple of wires twisting in his neck fluttered in response. He was met with that familiar visor and entirely unreadable facemask, but his voice oozed authority, intimidation, and the smoke of a short fuse ready to blow. 'Look at me when I speak.' 

'What is there to look? I see no optics.' Orion said, an annoyed edge seeping into a supposed level tone. Darkwing squeezed harder and brought Orion's face closer. 

'Don't test my patience, miner. Keep going and I can make sure your other optic can't see slag to match.'

Orion threw his servos up in mock defeat, his optics dimming. Darkwing loosened his grip, but his servo remained on Orion's face. His tone unchanging, 'You know what I want.'

'Clumsy with your words today.'

'I don't need to mince them for the likes of you.'

'You don't take me for someone sophisticated?' Orion waved his archive disks in the air, its corner pinched betwixt his servo digits and threatening to drop it to the streets below. 'Where's your usual cordiality?' 

Darkwing snatched the contraband with his other servo. 'Usually, others are watching.' He said, a didactic level of condescension that made Orion's dentae grind together. 'You don't deserve any. Once you've got a cog, we'll talk properly.' Disgust rippled through his words, alongside arrogance -- Orion will never get a cog; not in his wildest dreams, no matter what he can offer up to Darkwing.

Orion opened his mouth to say more, but Darkwing's thumb already started threateningly press into his defected optic, sparks flying out in protest. Orion didn't flinch, he directed his processor to turn off facial sensations. The corner of his mouth twitched as he spoke in a mocking sadness. ‘Well, we’re talking right now. I think being fragile and weak and cog-less means I deserve more kindness than your usual colleagues.’ 

Almost in annoyance at Orion’s nonchalance, Darkwing's other servo, holding the archive tablets, traced down, leaving sparks in his already chipped armour. Darkwing’s closed fist hovered close to the cog hole in Orion's chest, and allowed himself in, emphasising with the hunk of metal every crevice of the absence of something meant to be there, too dirty to be touched by his own servo. Orion’s breathing hitched, fighting his instinct to move his chassis away from the foreign intrusion. ‘I didn’t take you for a bot that’s into this kind of thing.’ Orion gasped, trying to shame Darkwing out of what he’s doing. 

The words seemed to prompt Darkwing to go even slower, taking his sweet time to methodically trace each pathway, each hollow slab encircling nothingness in Orion's chassis.

‘There’s plenty of me that you don’t know about, miner. None of it that you deserve.’ His voice lost a little bit of that rough edge. Orion wasn’t sure if he imagined that.

The tablets in Darkwing’s servos pushed further into the cog hole, jamming into the gaps which sent spikes of pain and warnings pings straight to Orion’s helm. In tandem, Darkwing’s other servo clenched so hard around Orion's face -- to prevent any attempt at escape, no doubt -- Orion's systems also flickered red in warning of imminent facial deformation. Orion swiped it away and allowed his thoughts to wander. The pain was becoming farther and farther away, and he was retreating into the glowing pulse of Iacon city. He is now untouchable and unreachable, one of the many lights illuminating Cybertron, watching indifferently the mining bot with no cog being scratched and dented by his superior.

Faintly, his audials only registered Darkwing saying something. Orion let out a murmur of a reply, his optics unfocused and Darkwing only shapes of purple and blue and reflected yellow. It was funny, it felt like Orion was looking in a mirror. Maybe his cogged self would have a cool visor and a facemask. Nobody would know what he’s feeling or thinking that way and he doesn’t have to drift away like this. His mouth twitched, a little giggle escaped his lips, and the world crashed back into focus with a hard smack against his helm. Orion lost his balance and fell backwards, his head spinning and vision recalibrating from the impact to his system. Orion caught himself, no longer sitting at the edge of the roof but now his legs splayed out like a helpless faun, his servos barely keeping him steady. Orion's optics slowly refocused on Darkwing's face; his processor still not fully present. Orion blinked at him dumbly. 

Darkwing let out a dark laugh. 'You used to be a lot more durable. Where's your fight, Orion Pax?'

Orion did not register that Darkwing gave him the privilege of first name basis. Those words were recorded and filed somewhere for later. 

Darkwing moved in closer between Orion's open legs, his entire frame leaning over the smaller bot. Orion's optics bloomed and shrunk, reacting to the change in light, but his face still in a daze. His defected optic sparked, and Orion blinked slowly again, as if only just realising that his defect optic existed. 

And Darkwing waited. 

'You want data?' Orion finally rasped out, regaining some semblance of consciousness after a very slow system scan. 

'As much as you have to give.' Darkwing replied, his processor jack held out expectantly from his chassis. He didn't wait for a reaction from Orion. Darkwing reached a servo around his neck and tapped at Orion's socket impatiently until it gave way.

Darkwing was like a force of nature in his processor, its waves flowed and ebbed, retreating from Orion's emotional compartments that were carefully encrypted, and lapped hungrily at the walls built, small foams and bubbles of annoyance left in its wake. He felt Darkwing manoeuvre past it quickly, losing interest at the sturdy constructs. He instead went to picking apart Orion's mind. He crashed into Orion's memories like the tide, spraying himself into the crevices of his coding and eroding and breaking small parts away. Inevitable and powerful. 

Orion could feel a sick glee emnating from Darkwing at his feigned helplessness; how he easily pushed through each file and each memory, opening and feeding greedily then moving onto the next, creating a path of error pings where Orion struggled to close and refile them properly after Darkwing had forced into them. There was no time or energy or processing power to check what he had seen or what he had taken; there was only room for passive observation. Orion accepted a request to turn on his fans, sound for him to focus on so that his mind and body remained open and vulnerable.

Orion's servo digit twitched, betraying his attempt at maintaining a docile demeanour. Darkwing was in his processor but probably not interested in Orion's thoughts, so Orion set aside some remaining power to stay here. Whilst Darkwing was still busy, Orion could snake his hand up and tear out his neck cables. He wondered if someone as untouchable as Darkwing bled energon too, if the high grade he drank tasted better than the miner rations they got. If Orion bit into his cabling he could get a taste of what it's like. He wondered if Darkwing would let him do it in exchange for intel. Maybe he could take this opportunity to invade Darkwing's processor and destroy the main frame the way he is to Orion right now. Leave him out of commission for days just as a taste of his own medicine. 

Like clockwork, Darkwing's servos reached around Orion's arms and pinned them together. Orion's heart sank, realising that his processor was working so hard overtime a simple scan didn't even pick up the little puddles of Darkwing lurking in his thoughts -- waiting -- looking for signs of betrayal. Darkwing’s anger rushed in like the tide, Orion could barely think now with two minds in the same space, every train of thought that began was ruthlessly interrupted, devoured, torn apart by Darkwing's robust code. Orion's optics and joints sparked. He used the last bit of his processing power to turn off his voice box. If he begs for mercy, or even so much as let out a sound, Darkwing would have won. The larger bot leaned in closer, his other servo reached for Orion's throat. He gave it a light squeeze, which made Orion choke from his closing windpipe. His voice was a quiet rumble akin to his jet engine, vibrating against Orion’s audials and horribly intimate. 'Did you really think that I wouldn't notice? Your schemes to kill me are pathetic.' 

Orion finally gave into his systems' plea for a flight response, but it was too late. His legs kicked helplessly against Darkwing's massive frame; his arms wrung too tight. The panel that was supposed to conceal his port flapped uncontrollably and smacked against Darkwing's intrusion. Darkwing pressed into the jack connected to Orion, which had been loosened from the port spasming and attempting to push Darkwing out. With a strong shove, Darkwing moved back into the tight socket. The port let out a muffled crack as he forced himself past several clamped rings until he sat snug inside of Orion’s once more. Sparks flew from their forced connection. Orion arched, his mouth agape and his optics flared brightly from the pain. His vision was completely covered in static, flashing bright red and white. 

'Don't even think about ejecting.' Darkwing purred, voice dripping with honey. His servo moved to rub circles around Orion's port. If it weren't for everything else, it would have been a tender motion to soothe Orion through the pain of their connection. 'I'm not done yet.'

Orion stopped struggling. A defeated breath left his intake as his helm slumped against Darkwing's shoulder armour. He dimmed his optics, hoping that the lack of visual input would make the next few joors more bearable. At least he could pretend that it was some bot else doing this to him, and that he had a say in it. Orion’s audials threatened to shut off too, his processor desperately trying to conserve power to his core and cutting off extremities. Orion fought the pings to keep them open as Darkwing ploughed through his system. 

'That’s it.’ Darkwing’s voice soft and tender, in complete contrast to his violent conquest in Orion’s mind. ‘I like a smart bot who knows how to behave.’ Orion let out a horrible shudder from the soothing praise. He wanted to claw and tear at his audials until they bled and heard nothing. ‘Other miners could learn a thing or two from you.' 

Orion didn't reply. He couldn't think of a snarky comment even if he could. All he could manage was a weak push against Darkwing in his mind, trying to get him to leave. Darkwing clicked his tongue but said nothing, giving Orion's processor the mercy of retreat. He let go of Orion's arms, certain that all the fight had left the bot. He placed a servo on the small of Orion's back, supporting his frame and held his helm close with his other servo. Orion imagined that D-16 was doing this to him, and his engine let out a soft rumble. With that in mind, Orion cowered back into the corner of his processor as Darkwing worked. He could barely muster the strength to even open his systems. Darkwing just overrode them one by one, misfiling and misplacing and leaving Orion's neatly compartmentalised information strewn about his mind. So much junk buildup that Orion couldn't even possibly think about picking up the mess until the next recharge cycle. Orion's fans were whirring loudly, his frame hot and heavy as he pressed himself against Darkwing's cool frame to try and alleviate his physical responses to the electric load. Orion couldn't even register what was happening to him, his system so slowed by the junk all he could do was to stare and feel Darkwing tear through his mind. Rebel meetings, high guard worshippers, energon shipment times, openings in schedule for smuggling contraband. Anything and everything Orion could possibly offer, Darkwing descended upon it like a vulture, devouring and consuming him whole. Orion could feel and remember nothing else.

Orion finally regained a modicum of his processing power back once Darkwing began withdrawing, closing tabs and pings which gave more room to him. Once it was all over, Orion saw a trickling stream of Darkwing flow to where Orion sheltered himself. Orion felt a servo digit on his face, wiping away tears he didn’t realise he was crying. He wished that was D-16 and choked on static as more rushed forward. Silent hiccups and silent screams, his voice box still turned off, Orion clawed at Darkwing's shoulder kibble, his arms, his frame -- anything and everything and wished that D-16 was holding him like this. D-16 could violate him and invade him and destroy him all he wanted. Orion would lay himself bare and tear out his spark and let D-16 eat it if he so desired. He can die then and there watching D-16 gulp his spark and become one with him, and Orion can stay inside of his warm chassis forever and safe and Darkwing can never reach him. 

Darkwing didn't retaliate or fight back; he didn't even speak. He simply kept wiping away Orion's tears as Orion's voice box grinded together and rasped until the air was quiet and still and it was just Orion, panting and shaking and retching into his servos. His optics flickered as it tried to push out more fluid but there was no more to give. Orion withdrew his servos from his intake, his helm dipped down at his saliva as if he saw it for the first time with a blank, unfocused stare. 

Darkwing’s servo digit moved to Orion’s face again, wiping away the intake fluid from Orion’s lower lip. His thumb pressed against Orion’s lip and Orion clamped his denta down onto it so hard that Darkwing hissed as it drew energon. Orion lapped it up hungrily, almost as if relishing in the only kind of revenge he could muster. 

Darkwing’s antenna twitched as he watched in amusement. An abused puppy sinking its fangs into the same hand who feeds and beats it.

As this happened, Darkwing allowed himself to retreat fully into his own processor. He sat back and slowly withdrew his thumb as his fuel line started to clot. 

Darkwing’s exit made Orion snap to attention. Suddenly aware that he is in complete control of his processor again, he ejected Darkwing’s jack from his socket. Darkwing’s coil snapped back into place in a blink of an eye, his panel closed around it. Orion’s own port panel let out a hiss of relief from being able to slot back into its place at last. Orion did a quick systems scan, in which he saved the report for a detailed systems cleaning later. He pushed the junk code aside for now and reset his vocaliser and his optics. He did a quick sweep, filing away his feelings and emotions next to the wall of encryptions for sorting later, the taste of Darkwing’s blood included.

Darkwing just sat there, waiting quietly and watching intently. Orion wanted to tear his head off and rip open his face mask and smash a gaping hole into his visor. It was worse that he wasn’t rushing Orion in the slightest. It felt like Orion had now become one of the many miners Darkwing had finally broken in. It felt like Darkwing was past roughhousing and beating Orion into his place; Orion had become Darkwing’s little lapdog – not only in the eyes of his colleagues – but now, also, to himself. Orion swallowed to prevent himself from retching again. 

Orion felt so cold and alone. His frame yearned for contact, and all he had was Darkwing. No bot was holding him or connected to him. He felt like he was being hollowed from the inside out. Orion shut his optics tightly, he felt like he was going to melt into the floor. 

Orion rubbed his own cheek, thinking about how Dee comforted him in that first dream he accessed in a way that was not dissimilar to Darkwing. He thought about the warm smile that Dee would give him if he touched him like this; and felt himself relax a little bit. No matter how many times his co-workers say he’s taking it up the aft with Darkwing, no matter how hard Darkwing tries to humiliate him; there are some things that no Cybertronian can take from him. 

Orion’s optics refocused and Darkwing hadn’t moved. He just looked expectantly at him, waiting for Orion to request his end of the bargain for their next meeting. Orion hated how Darkwing’s professionalism also made him feel like everything was fine. But in all honesty, Orion was struggling for ideas after what just happened. His optics landed on Darkwing’s blue polish and thought about D-16 and how his optics were a much prettier colour. Not nearly as perfect or reflective but warm and inviting. 

'Do you know anything about kissing?' Orion blurted out, before immediately feeling embarrassed.

The jet’s wing twitched in surprise. Orion usually requested archive material, so he was caught off-guard. 'As in matching intakes? Heard about it.'

'Do bots still do it?'

'Are you asking if I have?' The voice was defensive, with an unsure edge to it. Orion couldn’t tell if it was something that Darkwing didn’t want to talk about, or he just genuinely didn’t know. 

Orion shrugged. ‘You didn’t answer my question. Nothing about it had to do with you.’

Darkwing let out a rumble of annoyance which made Orion’s spark flip briefly in fear. But it looked like he was in a good mood; because the anger dissipated as quickly as it came. 

‘It’s seen as an outdated culture, of organic life no less, so cogged bots don’t really do it. I think plenty of you cogless miners have figured out doing it feels good without breaking into the archives though.’ Orion tried not to think about how Darkwing knew about that second part. Instead, he watched Darkwing flick Orion’s archive tablets between his servo digits. 

Orion tried to remember when Darkwing took those from him, but his processor was blocking access to his memory banks for the time being. He rolled his eyes. Responsible, but annoying. Orion didn’t have the energy to bypass it.

Orion thought long and hard until his vents puffed out a little steam. ‘I don’t know how kiss. Teach me?’ 

Darkwing tilted his head, his antenna flicking forwards, in curiosity rather than disbelief. ‘You want me to kiss you for the information you provided today?’

‘Yes.’ Orion felt disgusted at the prospect. But he’d rather kiss D-16 right the first time, and do it well, and teach him how. 

‘And that’s all?’

Orion considered. ‘Yeah.’ He then licked his lips, thinking about the high grade he drank from Darkwing’s cables. ‘And maybe I want to taste your blood again.’ 

Darkwing looked at him and nodded with surprisingly little resistance. He stored away the archive disks somewhere in his chassis, then slid open his mask. Orion saw nothing remarkable about the lower half of Darkwing’s face. Or maybe because Orion preferred not to commit anything intimate about Darkwing to memory. Orion shuffled closer, and Darkwing leaned in with his servo on Orion’s cheek. 

It was just metal on metal. It was soft, sure, and it felt warm because both of their processors were connected a short while ago; but nothing like the sultry or romantic literature Orion read. No skipping of the spark, no ripple of erotic fantasy. It was just intakes touching. 

Something prodded at his intake, also metallic but it felt stronger and demanding. Orion opened his mouth, knowing that it was Darkwing’s glossa surging in. Orion waited until it entered full length and Darkwing’s smugness in his field swell to its fullest before biting down as hard as he could. Darkwing’s entire frame froze in shock and pain. Orion opened his optics and bore right into Darkwing’s unreadable visor. Orion smiled so wide that his faceplate hurt. 

Payback, bitch. 

Darkwing’s strong servos shot straight for Orion’s throat, squeezing his neck cables as he let out a choking sound. Orion bit down tighter with stronger resolution. If Orion died here, he was going to make sure that Darkwing’s glossa was so unusable he’d be forced to plug in to even communicate to whichever fortunate medic treating him that a cog-less miner tore it out. He locked his jaw with a loud clicking sound. He felt Darkwing’s charge crackle all over his intake in extreme, painful protest.

Seeing that it did not give, Darkwing’s servos moved to Orion’s shoulder plates, warping and denting it with the force he was exerting with his servo digits. He tried to push Orion’s frame away from him, but quickly stopped after a loud tearing sound was heard from cables snapping off between Orion’s closed dentae. Energon now spilled freely between their touching lips, and Orion sucked it up greedily, a low purr from his engine in satisfaction. 

Darkwing took that short window of opportunity to yank Orion free, his turbines turning and practically smoking with rage as he lifted Orion and marched him over to the edge of the rooftop. Orion licked his lips and stared back at Darkwing with eerie contentment in his eyes, a fattened kitten who just had his share of milk. 

Orion answered Darkwing before he could even ask his question. ‘You upheld your end. A kiss and a drink.’ 

A smile crept across his face so smug Darkwing’s servos moved once again to Orion’s abused neck cables, lifting him farther off the edge of the building. Darkwing was panting, his glossa half-severed at the base as more energon bled with no hint of stopping. Darkwing opened then closed his intake, realising that if he tried to formulate words right now, he could not trust himself to prevent lisping, ruining any semblance of intimidation he still held. 

Orion threw back his helm and laughed. He laughed and laughed into the beautiful night sky, dotted with faux stars and constellations that were the lights of Iacon. He laughed until all he had was static in his throat. He was laughing so hard he forgot to reset his vocaliser between breaths, just garbled sounds of absolute glee and happiness and vindication from such a simple act. He wanted the world to know. He wanted his laughter to travel from the bots soundly sleeping in the gleaming buildings above him, to the midnight snack stalls and merchants who pushed energon below all the way down to Primus himself that he won. Darkwing took everything from him, and he was able to take something from Darkwing for once. Darkwing can drop him and Iacon city can digest him and absorb him into one of the many lights like those old traditional beliefs that when a bot dies its spark becomes a star. 

All Darkwing could do was squeeze tightly at Orion’s windpipe and even that didn’t stop him. Orion’s frame jerked and sparked, but he did not stop his full body laughter. His servos instinctively grabbed and pawed at Darkwing’s grip, leaving deep scratch marks, his peds kicked and flailed, but choking, strangled laughter was still erupting from his slowly crushing voice box.

Darkwing hooked his digits into Orion’s cog hole instead, dangling him by that body part, hoping that there was something, absolutely anything he could do to trigger the fear of Primus into Orion again. He hissed as his servos began to smoke from how hot Orion’s frame ran, and nearly dropped him for real. Orion’s sounds did not stop, choking and staticky and hysterical. 

‘Aaah, you don’t want to be doing that.’ Orion’s voice cooed, his vocaliser finally reset as his frame relaxed. ‘You still have use of me. Or I should say, you have no choice but to use me.’ His optics glowed a deep orange. ‘Do I have to remind you why you’re stuck with me in the first place? I still have everyone on speed dial. Maybe you’re begging to be demoted to feel what it’s like to be cogless.’ For emphasis, Orion even tapped against his cog hole, which made Darkwing growl so aggressively his entire frame rippled, his turbines whirring even louder. ‘Our exchange tonight is done. Dare I say you’ve gotten greedy with me even for our usual. Don’t push your luck.’ 

Darkwing brought Orion back to the rooftop and released him roughly. Orion’s weak and spent frame sent out a couple more sparks as he collapsed to his knees. He let out a final breathless chuckle tingled with electric charge. 

Orion slowly rose, dusting himself off as he watched Darkwing close his mask, energon still slowly streaking down his chin in lumps. He was practically fuming. 

After some moments of silence where it was Orion’s turn to wait, Darkwing finally decided to communicate through a frequency message. [I’ll be in contact for our next meeting.]

Orion smirked as Darkwing moved closer to him. 

‘You want another parting kiss?’ Orion gloated, his processor tired and happy. He can’t wait to get into recharge. 

Darkwing reached out his servo to Orion and brushed his thumb against his left cheek, rubbing small circles around his broken optic. Orion flinched. He swore he stored that memory in encryption. It shouldn’t have been possible to access.

[Take the next solar cycle off to sleep in. D-16 can work double-time, since you had such a nice recharge together. Interesting that the top of the sector had taken a liking to you. His good influence has been noted. I already sent a message to Ratchet to do some repairs on you after you wake.]

Orion stared at Darkwing, his processor grinding to a halt.

What?

Orion felt dizzy, but he couldn’t let any emotion show. Not now, when he’s barely clawed a victory against Darkwing into his grasp. Luckily for him, Darkwing was keen on leaving before Orion tried trapping him with questions. He quickly transformed and flew away, but not before flaring the arrogance in his field as a not-so-subtle power trip. Orion remained still, trying to deaden his field to not give Darkwing the satisfaction.

As soon as Darkwing was out of earshot, Orion’s knees buckled and curled himself into a cocooned position, his forehelm against the ground and his arms holding his abdomen. 

Orion screamed. 

His fingers dug into his neck cables and tore and pulled as hard as he could. They groaned in protest, his processor red and flashing weakly, unable to withstand any more mental and physical stress. Orion let out a weak sob in frustration. He was too damn tired and spent to be able to do any real damage. Orion felt alone and cold and hollow and scared and dirty and used. 

Orion felt himself go offline as he tried to dig his fingers deeper into his neck, cursing at himself and his own incompetence. 

Maybe he really should have died instead.

Chapter Text

Orion opened his optics. Slowly. Painfully. He could hear murmurs around him, the bright light piercing his blurry vision. His processor was a sludge to move through – but it was more so because he was put into a forced state of recharge. He could feel another mind inside of him, clinical, precise, and prodding. Orion tried to push it away, but he was still too weak and barely conscious. The mind luckily withdrew, but not without a lick of annoyance. He felt a jack eject from his socket, and only registered that he had been plugged into some other bot. 

‘Hullo? Are you awake?’ A servo waved in front of his eyes. Recharge was so warm and soft Orion just wanted to drift off instead. He felt his optics getting heavier, before falling right back into darkness.

 ✦✧✦

By the time Orion came back online he was in the barracks. It was empty – everyone is on shift, no doubt. He stretched his limbs and craned his neck, feeling the slight tear of a bandage around it. Ratchet must have fixed him right up, as Darkwing promised. Orion immediately checked the polished reflection of the barracks to see his defected optic. It was still its ugly self, exposed with wiring running through it, but he was able to see clearer, and it flickered a lot less. He knew that Darkwing kept it as a symbol of how broken Orion was, but it still stung. Unlovable, distasteful, and below everyone. Barely even bot-like. It reminded Orion what he was underneath all that protoform and plating.

Orion opened his scan reports, largely outdated, especially after what Ratchet did to fix him up. He noticed a new report in his HUD that wasn’t there and opened it. Of course it was put there by Ratchet.

He strained his audials for more visitors, then let out an exvent he didn’t know he was holding when he heard nothing.

It listed the junk that was cleaned up, where it was filed, and predictably a stern notice about his wall of encryptions, advising him to see a processor therapist to decode it to prevent future repercussions. The report didn’t say anything about a leak, but Orion knew better. He didn’t want to scan the area of his helm, though. He didn’t really want to think about anything, really. His systems strained with every decline he made about refiling last night’s memories, to the point where it requested him to compartmentalize the trauma.

Huh, trauma.

That’s one word for what happened. Physical trauma was dealt to him – in his eye, specifically – also his neck. Orion touched it instinctively. He accepted the ping, feeling already calmer, less jittery.

Less like Darkwing could be hiding around the corner to grab him and strangle him again.

He heard the beginnings of footsteps coming into the barracks, and suddenly the room was flooded with pedes, chatter, and the clanking of metal. First it was Jazz who popped his head in, a streak of the blue visor made Orion flinch a little, before relaxing. If you’re going to freak out over every visor you see, there’s much more wrong with you that Ratchet can’t fix.

‘Hey Pax! Got that special treatment again, huh? New polish too!’ Jazz said, all too loudly. Orion shot him a glare. Jazz smiled a wicked grin. He knew exactly what he was doing.

‘Can say the same to you.’ Orion flicked his helm in the direction of Jazz’s visor. Normally it was a piercing red. ‘Barely escaped the jaws of death, did you?’ Orion grumbled. He recalled again everyone accusing him of murdering Jazz, which wasn’t entirely untrue. He didn’t like him. He got trapped in a cave collapse. Orion didn’t alert anyone and walked away. Clearly somebody else found him though.

‘Yeah, luckily everybody got to me in time before I sang my last note.’ Jazz wiggled his peds as he walked farther away, his voice trailing. ‘Also, you know, since I’m only one rank under the top, I’m a valuable asset to keep around, unlike some bots that kiss their way up.’

Orion moved to get up, his head flashing with a pulsating dilemma whether to just stay put or grab Jazz by the shoulder pads and slamming him against the wall. As more bots filed in, Orion quickly lost him in the crowd, and he cursed himself for not leaping at the chance to punch his teeth in and make him sing properly . Out his peripheral, a servo came and slammed Orion’s helm downwards. His vision crackled with static as he collided with the floor. Orion groaned, his systems flashes briefly the authentication of a decryption key pair, then the feeling of Darkwing smacking him. So much for compartmentalization.

Orion coughed out static and tried to get up, but was quickly stomped down by another ped to his abdomen.

‘Look at the lapdog who got his boyfriend to cover for his shift.’ Orion’s optics were so blurry from the pain he could barely see who was taunting him.

‘His boyfriend isn’t even here to rescue him because he has to work double-time, isn’t that sad.’ A face leaned down to Orion, its exvent puffing hot air straight onto his face.

‘Maybe next time you see Darkwing, you put in a good word for all of us, eh? I want time off and a free trip to medbay too.’

Orion reached up his servos and dug them deep into the optics of the face in front of him. The bot howled in pain and recoiled, the ped on his stomach loosening. With a snarl and his full weight behind his servos, Orion threw the mech to the ground and began climbing his way on top of them. It certainly was caught off guard, with a full night of recharge and a recent visit to the medical bay, Orion’s joints were lubricated and his parts fresh off the assembly line. His vision was still blurry. Orion only saw blue and yellow beneath him, and that was enough for him to bring his servos up and slam right down into their chassis. It was Darkwing. He must be neutralised.

The energon rushing in his audials were so loud he couldn’t hear the gasps, the yelling and the clambering around him as he bashed and bashed and bashed into the helm and the chassis of Darkwing below him. Energon flowed between his knuckles. Orion brought them to his lips. He couldn’t tell if the energon was his, or if it was Darkwing’s. But he didn’t care. All that matters is that he’s winning. He’s taking. Orion leaned down and brought his intake close to the dented chassis. Perhaps a bite of Darkwing, something he can never take back from Orion unless he dissected him.

Several rough pairs of servos swarmed around him and grabbed Orion by the helm. Some moved to cover his optics as the power of several bots dragged him off the victim below. The fingers were digging into his optic and it hurt and hurt and hurt . Orion screamed, which loosened the grip of some of the bots dragging him backwards. A claw came down on his injured neck, a fist against his chassis, the weight of a bot sitting on top of his pedes holding him still.

Nothing else felt real. Orion was a doll. He sagged as servos and pedes and laughter descended upon him. Faintly, just within earshot, he heard a tune being hummed in swing as the pain subsided, and a gentle touch against his helm. Orion saw blue. Then it all turned black.

✦✧✦

A gentle servo on his cheek. He opened his eyes to shimmering blue. It looked like energon. Primus, he’s starving. Orion tried to reach out for it, his intake drooling a little, but his fingertips only brushed against the faceplate of the bot’s face above him, before wincing from pulling an exposed wire.

‘Hey, hey. It’s okay. I’m here now.’ Orion closed his optics and felt two servos wrap itself around either side of Orion’s helm. The bot was humming a familiar tune. ‘Dee?’ His tongue felt thick.

A soft chuckle reverberated throughout the bot cradling him, the vibrations extending to Orion’s helm and making him feel fuzzy inside.

Orion let out a sigh. ‘I thought you’re working double-time.’ There was a silent pause, as if D-16 was thinking. 

‘Um, yeah, sure. Everyone’s recharging right now. I just got back.’ Something cold and sweet prodded at Orion’s lips. He opened his intake and let a cube of energon slide in between his dentae. The servo digit lingered a little too long between his jaws. Orion couldn’t help himself from a playful lick against it. D-16 chuckled above him. The finger retracted, and Orion swallowed.

‘Thanks.’ He whispered, his optics still screwed shut. His throat grinded together every time he spoke. Orion tried to move his fingers to touch his neck, but any sort of bending of his joints sent shooting pain right to his processor. Nanites started flooding down his fuel lines with the newfound energy, attempting to alleviate some of the pain.

D-16 reached a servo down to brush non-existent dust off Orion’s shoulder, his fingertips pressing gently against Orion’s neck wound. Orion winced, his processor flashing the memory of some bot choking him. Was that during the brawl earlier or was it last night?

A chuckle that sounded a little too smooth could be heard. Orion frowned. ‘Did you do something new with your voice box?’

‘Hm? What makes you say that?’

Orion grimaced as the servos on his face trailed downwards, stroking at his exposed wires. He shifted a little in discomfort, but was unable to swat the hand away.

‘You just sound… Different.’ Orion grunted. One particularly powerful yank at his leg locked it back in place. He didn’t even realise that it was dislocated. 

‘Maybe I’m just different when I’m with you.’ Orion’s spark fluttered in his chest. 

‘I’m… Different too, I think.’ Orion admitted.

‘Really?’ A little laugh rumbled all over Orion’s chassis. A smile tugged at Orion’s lips before he even could register it. ‘You’re cute like this. You should be honest to me more.’ Orion felt his faceplate heat up. Something about this feels wrong. Feels off. Sure, Dee was forward, but like this?

‘Honest how?’

‘I dunno. One thing I can be honest about, is that I’m not D-16.’

Orion froze. His optics resetted, and it came online with clarity that what he saw was a blue visor and it was not Dee’s optics and it was Jazz.

Orion slammed his servos into Jazz, and he flew backwards into the wall. Orion looked around, realising this wasn’t the recharge barracks at all – he’s back in bathing in the clinical lights of Ratchet’s office. 

‘You lying bastard.’ Orion spat.

‘Me? I never lie. You know this, Orion.’ Jazz hummed, ‘It’s no good to clog up my pipes with lies. It’s like rust to an engine. You saw who you wanted to see.’ 

‘What is wrong with you?’ Orion’s helm was heating, and it was reaching temperatures that flagged his HUD with a rising urgency to open his vents.

A laugh all too light and singsong and beautiful erupted from Jazz’s throat and Orion never wanted to strangle him more.

‘What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you falling for someone completely out of your league?’ Jazz giggled; his head tilted with a coy smile. He pressed something next to his audial which switched his visor back to his gleaming red. 

‘Who? D-16?’

‘Well… Yes! He could be with anyone, yet he chose you. I’ve been making everyone see you as the two-faced bot that you are, but he hasn’t budged. Maybe because you always look like a wounded puppy.’ Orion balled up a fist. Jazz paused for a moment, then, his voice soft, but his shit-eating grin unwavering: ‘I have to admit, I can’t resist either.’

Orion practically pounced onto Jazz. He grabbed him by the helm and headbutted into his visor, cracking it and splintering it into fragments that dug into his servos and Jazz’s faceplate. Blood-energon oozed its way down Jazz’s face. He fritzed a discordant note. Orion grinned. 

A clicking sound - Jazz reset his vocaliser.

‘Done playing?’ Jazz hummed out, his exposed orange eye shrinked in calculation before he threw out a punch that outclassed any that Orion could hope to give. Orion slammed against the berth behind him, cascading across the surface and sending medical supplies flying. Ugh. That’s going straight out of my credit from Ratchet.  

Orion groaned and lifted his head. His processor reassessed the situation, and decided the best course of action might be doing what Orion does best – talking. He’s been too clouded by emotion lately. Talk, Orion.

‘What even do you have to gain from doing this?’ He rasped out.

‘Hm. Nothing. Just thought it’d be funny.’ Jazz shrugged. ‘And I like you, I guess.’

‘No other reason at all?’

‘Nope. And you’re cute, especially when you’re smitten.’

Orion’s fans let out a huff before he could even stop it. ‘I’m not in love with D-16.’

‘I didn’t say who.’ Jazz smirked, and Orion choked static in annoyance. ‘But sure. You can keep lying to yourself. I ain’t here to tell you what to do.’

Orion sighed. He climbed his way onto the berth, rummaging for a soldering iron. He pawed out one of them and plugged it in, soon the rod began to heat. 

‘I’m sorry.’ He forced out, allowing himself to make a concession. Keeping Jazz on his good side is probably better than letting emotions take hold of him – he did just admit to influencing everyone into beating the living daylights out of Orion. ‘Come over and I’ll patch you up.’

‘You’re sorry?’ Jazz tilted his head in surprise.

‘Sure.’

Jazz slowly stepped over, rolling his shoulders back as if testing the strength in his frame if Orion attempted to hit him again. Orion brought the iron over to Jazz’s face, his other servo gently lifting the visor. Jazz reached his own hands out and tugged at an exposed wire, guiding it back into one of Orion’s seams. Orion flinched and moved his body away a little. Jazz withdrew his hand.

‘Hurts?’

‘No. Just give me a warning.’

‘Sure.’ Jazz’s hands moved again. ‘I’m gonna rummage my fingers in the seams to tighten your wires. Waist region.’ 

Orion moved his hips closer to Jazz to give him better access.

‘Y’know, the whole reason why you’re here is because I wanted to patch you up.’ Orion let out a dry chuckle that hitched into a hiss when Jazz pulled at one of the sinews, retracting an exposed red wire drooped along his waist back into its casing.

‘I suppose I interfered with those plans.’ Orion said, carefully inspecting Jazz’s face, before setting down the soldering iron. He bent down onto the floor to pick up a pair of tweezers and began carefully plucking out pieces of the visor glass stuck in his face. He would be lying if he didn’t secretly relish in Jazz’s face twitching in pain from every extraction.

Jazz remained gentle in handling Orion, despite their quiet exchanges of pain in the process. The silent animosity between them was enough for Orion not to squirm and think of how equally tenderly Darkwing touched him. ‘Yeah. I know D-16 usually does that – taking care of you, I mean – but he basically collapsed into his recharge bunk – I’m done with your waist, I’m moving up to look at your chassis now – I was the only one awake to drag you here.’ His feather-light touch moved to Orion’s chassis, tucking some of the wires back underneath the armour. Jazz pulled at a stray wire which made Orion kick him lightly in warning. 

‘How do you even know that?’ The accusatory words escaped Orion’s voicebox before he could think to adjust his language. He fought back the urge to cringe when his face was this close to Jazz and he could read every telltale sign. Orion used a rag to wipe the majority of the energon trickling down Jazz’s face. ‘Close your eyes.’ Jazz obeyed as he dabbed at the last bits of blood. Orion then took out the soldering iron and alloy. 

‘Oh please. For someone who has every higher-up wrapped around his finger you sure are dense.’ Jazz straightened a warped panel for emphasis. Orion soldered off the wires leaking energon, and a silence hung between them as he did that, for Orion wanted to have steady hands, and Jazz didn’t want to jeopardise his faceplate over a clever quip. 

‘I’m done.’ Orion mumbled, and Jazz continued, opening his optics.

‘You guys are cuddley and touchy and are joined by the hip. You’re practically conjunxed already. Recent discovery about you two recharging together was not news.’ Orion let himself cringe at that. ‘Aw don’t be like that. I thought it was cute.’ 

‘You’re not the one who got discovered by every bot under the sun.’ Orion placed down the soldering iron and unplugged it. Jazz didn’t respond. He seemed distracted by something in Orion’s chassis. ‘Something got your attention?’

‘Um, yeah.’ Jazz reached out a servo to point at his cog hole. ‘Is it meant to have that many dents and scratches? I don’t have Ratchet’s expertise so I didn’t want to touch it. But that looks bad. I can give you a mirror, if you want to look for yourself.’

‘That’s not necessary.’ Orion waved it off. He wanted this conversation over with. He was grateful Jazz took the hint, unlike D-16 normally would.

‘Whoever did that to you is kinda sick in the head. Unless you’re into that stuff, of course.’ He punctuated with an unsolicited knock.

‘You tell me.’ Orion sighed, jumping off the berth. ‘How is Dee? You said he collapsed.’

Jazz slid off the berth alongside him, picking up the other scattered pieces of medical equipment. ‘Don’t worry, Prowl made sure he was plugged in properly.’ Orion didn’t want to find out how Prowl was able to override the hardware. Jazz dusted himself and placed a hand on Orion’s shoulder. Orion fought between the urge to pull away and the urge to lean into it. ‘We got you covered.’

‘Yeah. Thanks.’ Orion muttered, shrugging off Jazz’s hand and walked back to the barracks.

 ✦✧✦

The secret was out anyway, Orion figured. So he fell into recharge next to D-16 in his bunk – craving any sort of touch from a bot at all. If it meant holding an unconscious, battered D-16 to warm his cold lonely frame, so be it. 

His defragmentation was full of dark shapes and nightmares. Something forcing itself into him – his port being yanked open, 

He came online, with D-16’s startled face next to his. D-16’s servo tapped Orion’s port casing again. Orion scrambled up, pushing himself against the side of the recharge bunk groggily. He dodged D-16’s incessant servo, and stumbled into his own bunk.

‘Darkwing did something to you, didn’t he?’

Orion didn’t reply. D-16 tried again.

‘Talk to me.’

‘Why are you forgiving me for what I did to you?’ 

‘You were sick. Anybot else would take over your shift, if asked, too.’

‘You and I both know that’s a lie.’

Silence hung between them and Orion wanted to scream.

D-16 sagged. ‘Thanks for plugging me in last night.’

‘That wasn’t me.’ Orion said quietly. Prowl walked past and gave a curt nod. The bell rang for their next shift.

D-16 walked over, his face stern and his eyes darkening in determination and annoyance. He stuck out a servo digit at Orion’s face, holding his gaze with his icy blue optics. ‘You better tell me more about this. When we have time.’ He punctuated with a firm grip on Orion’s shoulder pad.

‘Don’t touch me.’ Orion said gruffly, shaking D-16 off. ‘It hurts.’

D-16 was so startled by the statement he let Orion go, and Orion stumbled away into his shift. 

 ✦✧✦

Orion dropped off his mining equipment in storage as he wrapped up for the cycle. Dust had already settled back into his usual joints and crevices that Ratchet probably took his time to flush out. He stretched to shake out some small pieces of debris and unrefined energon splashes that caked his seams. 

D-16 brushed past Orion to place his trusty mining drill away, and Orion’s vision flashed with static. Ugh. He felt lightheaded, his processor chanted danger, danger. Orion swayed, his head feeling like it's stuffed with cotton. He tried to steady himself by leaning onto the locker door where he just placed the deployable support poles, but he just stumbled forwards and collapsed inside. A couple of shocked noises erupted from around him, and Orion scrambled to readjust, choking out static. 

‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ He said mildly, his hands looking for purchase and he instead pushed against one of the poles in its folded state, flipping the switch and activating it. The pole sprang to life underneath his fingertips and extended in a flash, lodging itself into Orion’s face and propelling him from the locker. He flew backwards and crashed into D-16’s arms behind him. D-16’s secure frame supported his, and it appears D-16 already had his arms open to catch him, as if he knew Orion was hurtling this way. Orion had to kick and claw his way out of it. Everyone was watching, and Orion felt his face heat up in embarrassment. 

‘Pax?’ D-16’s brow furrowed, his mouth opening to continue. Orion wanted to shut him up so badly. He shakily slapped his servo over D-16’s lips.

‘I– I–’ But no articulation would come. D-16 placed a commanding servo on Orion’s and yanked his palm away from his face easily. Times like these reminded Orion of how powerful D-16 is, and how much it cost D-16 to be so gentle all the time. An annoyed edge seeped into D-16’s voice.

‘You really need someone to check up on you.’

‘No. No, no. No one. I don’t need anyone.’ Orion pushed D-16 away, so hard that D-16 slammed into the locker and tipped over boxes of tools stacked up on top of it. Nuts and bolts poured down like little rain droplets, tinking against Orion’s armour as he shambled his way into the barracks, his frame teetering and crashing against the walls for purchase. 

Slag, slag. Everything hurts, his processor protested. Orion dodged every too-close frame and servo from the bots that walked past him. He crawled into his recharge bunk and curled up as small as he could. Primus, he wished he had a transformation cog so he could make himself tiny and scarce, or, better yet, transform a fortress around him.

 ✦✧✦

By the time Orion woke up again, it was in the dead of the lunar cycle. He allowed his optics to focus this time before anything else, learning his lesson from his encounter with Jazz. He let out a breath of surprise mixed with relief when D-16’s helm came into view. Soft whirring emitted from the silver mech as he dozed next to Orion, his frame curled in such a way as if he were shielding Orion from the world, but also careful to not touch him. Orion reached his servo out tentatively, his fingertip touching the edge of D-16’s well defined cheekbone. How beautiful and peaceful he was like this. He wondered if D-16 saw him like this too.

Orion leaned forwards and clinked helms with D-16 quietly, seeing if he would wake up. D-16 didn’t seem to budge, shifting his frame slightly but only to change his pose. Orion reached out and plugged himself into D-16, searching for the decryption key so that he could override D-16’s recharge panel. A cheery green flash emerged into his HUD and D-16’s port slid open. Orion reached behind his back and unplugged the recharge cord from his nape and slid it home into Dee’s system.

Orion stayed there, pondering, wondering if he should probe deeper again. He thought about how warm and safe he felt, bathing in D-16’s joy and affection for him in defragmentation, and secretly a little bit of fear of losing Orion too. Orion brought his hand up to D-16’s faceguards, tracing along the tip and towards D-16’s lips. He thought about how D-16’s fingertips touched Orion’s lips, and how hot it felt between them. He ran his fingertips across the scratched surface, trying to memorise every imperfection and how the soft metal sank beneath the pressure of his servo digits. He wondered if D-16 was thinking the same when he did that to Orion.

Orion bit his lip and closed his optics. This is a bad idea, the logos of his processor said. Yeah, but I execute bad ideas for a living. Overriding that logic was not hard. Before he knew it, Orion was once again floating through D-16’s processor, entering the decryption key and passing every encryption gate until he got to the centre of defragmentation. He reached out for a metaphorical archive of D-16’s memories. He felt anxiety and sadness emitting from Dee, perhaps from the events for the past couple of cycles. Orion can change that – can make D-16 feel at ease. He just needs the perfect memory…

His fingers brushed over a file from several deca-cycles ago and tugged the string of code out. Orion threw it into the mix of defragmentation. Soon, the scene in front of him changed, and once again he stepped forwards into the dream. He came face to face with… well, himself, and he let out a yelp in surprise when he watched himself step through his spectating frame.

‘Hey, Dee.’ He watched himself pat D-16 on the shoulder, swinging around to cling onto his frame as he watched D-16 play stratball intently on the arcade machine. Orion’s optics gleamed a lovely yellow in amusement, his irises blooming in concentration.

The spectating Orion felt his spark sink. Ah, this was before I lost my eye.

D-16 happily leaned into Orion’s touch. ‘Hey, Pax. Got off shift early?’

‘Yup.’ And D-16 nudged him. ‘Okay, okay. I may have buttered up a couple of people to get off early so I can spend some time with you…’

D-16 chuckled. ‘That’s the honest Pax I know.’ He clinked his helm against Orion’s, before a game over screen shed a red glow across both their faceplates.

D-16 turned to Orion as the violet and blue mech reluctantly peeled his arms off D-16. ‘Want a match?’

Orion sprung to grab the joystick. ‘You know it!’ 

The ghostly image of Orion walked over to a corner of the barracks and sat down, watching himself and Dee play to their hearts’ content, without a care in the world. Their faces illuminated by flashing images, and Orion yanking the joystick this and that, reckless and brash in his playstyle. Whilst D-16 calmly tapped away, his fingers light and fast and his eyes focused as they narrowed more and more. Both concentrated, not daring to stop to allow the other to gain the upper hand.

He sighed and sank back, feeling Dee’s processor also unwinding, lines of code floating into view and being filed off properly. Orion leaned into the warmth that was quickly surging forth like waves lapping on a shore at sunset. 

I love you. I miss you. I cherish you.

Orion felt like he could bask in this forever. He watched as his past self bumped shoulders into D-16, trying to cheat his way to victory through distraction. D-16 was like a bulwark, and barely showed a sign of noticing as his fingers tapped faster. 

Orion smiled. They haven’t played stratball in a while. Maybe he could challenge Dee to a match when things blow over.

Just when Orion turned to leave D-16’s processor, he heard a cracking noise. He whipped his head around, and watched the faceplate of his dream self disintegrate. Branches extended and grew across the surface as pieces of metal fell in little wisps. A red optic glared from underneath. The two still focused on stratball to not notice what happened to the intertwining of two memories coexisting, overlapping, warping and changing. 

Orion turned and ran back to his processor, ejecting himself from D-16’s system before its security latches onto Orion being inside again. Orion folded the jack back into his wrist compartment, and feigned sleep whilst D-16 above him stirred, his helm still touching D-16’s reassuringly should he wake up.

 ✦✧✦

‘Hey, Pax.’

‘Hey.’

‘Can we talk again?’

‘About what?’

‘About Darkwing.’

‘No.’

‘I’m worried.’

‘I know.’

‘Can I hug you?’

Orion paused. He thought about it. He thought about how lovely it would be to hug D-16, to feel his cool frame around his overheated one, to feel his fingers support his helm, and whisper that everything is going to be alright into his audials.

Nothing is going to be alright when D-16 does that.

‘No.’

‘Okay.’

The words emerged from Orion before he could stop it. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

D-16 got up to leave. Orion called after him.

‘Stay with me.’

‘Okay.’ D-16 came back and sat down next to Orion. 

‘Thank you.’ 

Silence hung between them.

‘I’m not happy with you.’

‘I know.’

‘You know what – I’m mad at you.’

Orion met D-16’s intense gaze. He wanted to cower away. A single streak of coolant spilled from his defected optic. It burnt – his circuitry felt like it was on fire. D-16’s gaze softened briefly, his servo reaching out, before he stopped himself and retracted. His look hardened once more.

‘Stay with me.’ Orion repeated. He can’t think of anything else to say without everything hurting.

‘You don’t have to ask again.’ D-16's expression was angry, but his voice sounded more like a heartfelt promise. ‘No matter how much you hate me, I’ll stay here. I’ll wait as long as it takes. Until our sparks burn out, I’ll wait. I’ll wait until you talk to me like you did before. I’ll wait until cogless miner Orion Pax, who played stratball with me, talks to me again.’

Orion didn’t muster a reply. He didn’t need to – his response didn’t matter. He and D-16 sat, their frames inches away from each other, but never touching. They stayed this way until the bell rang for curfew.

✦✧✦

That night, Orion stepped out of recharge to move towards D-16’s bunk again. He stood in front of D-16, his eyes level with his closed ones, the tips of his pedes touching D-16’s. He leaned in, his arms outstretched, and wrapped them carefully around D-16’s wide frame and shoulders. His hands barely met around the silver mech’s back, but he hooked his fingertips together as he tried to crush his embrace tighter to feel more like a hug.

‘Sorry.’ Orion whispered, half to himself. He let go and stroked where his armour scratched D-16’s shoulder kibble. ‘You wanted a hug. You get a hug.’

He connected himself to D-16 again. He felt embarrassed – if he kept this up, he’s going to end up doing this every night – but Orion couldn’t resist. It felt good. It felt too good. Maybe that’s why Darkwing liked directly interfacing too, instead of Orion trading hard drives or giving verbal intel.

Orion dove headfirst into his best friend’s processor. He swam past the code, heading straight for defragmentation again. He stopped and tread water near the memory archives once more. He palmed a couple of sheets of code, a few blocks of encryptions that he didn’t have the decryption key to. I suppose there are some secrets best kept hidden, even from Dee himself. Orion was reminded of how his ‘trauma’ was also ‘compartmentalised’ – perhaps it’s like this.

Orion skimmed over the code again. He selected something early last time because that was probably fresh into their friendship where Dee felt less worry and more affection for him – but turns out that didn’t work too well either. He pondered a little, before teasing out two different memories. Perhaps he could select the best of both, and to ensure a pleasant experience the whole way through. 

The memory of D-16’s first promotion, and the recent memory of hugging Orion after the nightmare. Orion tugged at the more tense lines of the code, overwriting and splicing them so that he could isolate the warm feeling of their friendship. Once he felt satisfied, he threw the remnants aside and slid it carefully into the pool of defragmentation in front of him. It felt more like a pool of visions, rather than a cinema this time round. 

He watched the memories sink in and swirl, and see a new dream created. He stepped in, and saw perhaps what is D-16’s ideal. It’s promotion day – he has finally become supervisor! Orion watched him hug Elita-One, and the other miners in turn. He walked around, paraded and finally settled on Orion, taking him by the hand and hugging him so tight that Orion started laughing. 

‘I knew you could do it.’ Dream Orion said, out of character but also in character. Perhaps in dreams, D-16 allowed this semblance of delusion to take hold of his processor. 

Orion closed his eyes and felt more than just the warmth of love – he felt joy, contentment, pride – all of it coalesced into one singularity, one moment, one fleeting implosion like a collapsing star. He stared as the scene moved past him as if it were a vignette, and couldn’t tear himself away.

It was wonderful – to see D-16 in pure bliss, in excitement and happiness and higher spirits than ever before – and seeing himself at Dee’s side even in his ideal world and future.

Orion lost track of time, and when he felt D-16’s processor start to wake up main functions and protocols, he scrambled his way out as quick as he could, without pulling out or untangling the rewriting he did for D-16. Pieces of code were strewn around the defragmentation pool, and Orion haphazardly shoved it into the archive somewhere so at least D-16’s scans won’t pick up something out of the ordinary.

He retracted his jack so fast it resounded against his panel with a clang. Orion stumbled back into his bunk and quickly plugged in as if nothing happened.

✦✧✦

Mining shift went on as usual. Orion and D-16 weren’t really on speaking terms, and everyone seemed to notice. Both of them worked alongside each other, their drills being the only sound between them, until D-16’s helm suddenly sparked and he dropped his drill, the engine still on and grinding into his ped. Orion looked up in shock, quickly turning off his own tool and grabbing D-16’s. 

D-16 was still sparking, and nobody else seemed to notice. Orion dragged him by the shoulders out of the cave, frantic and panicked as he called out for Elita-One. D-16 garbled static, but Orion could vaguely make out ‘Supervisor– Promoted– It’s so dark here–’ before he saw D-16 grab onto his forearm so hard it dented. His blue, vacant optics bore straight into Orion’s core. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. I left you.’

Then his systems were forced into shutdown.

Elita showed up, but only let out a tsk before telling Orion to get back to work and she’ll handle it. Orion nodded obediently, and Elita’s eyes widened a little in shock. Perhaps she expected Orion to protest, even for a little bit.

By the time Orion came back around the barracks and dusted off, D-16 was awake, making small talk as if nothing happened. Orion’s spark skipped a beat as he slowly walked around Dee, making a wide berth so he could eavesdrop on what he was talking about.

‘Guys– I swear, I’m fine. Nothing a little rest can’t fix.’

‘Dude, you glitched out. You were talking nonsense.’ One bot said, worriedly.

‘When Elita called for help and Ratchet managed to restart your systems you came out thinking Orion was trapped in the closed tunnel and you were somehow supervisor.’ Another said. ‘Your memory’s fucked up bad.’

Orion walked closer and coughed a little awkwardly. The jabbering stopped for a brief moment, but then continued, just more hushed.

Prowl rested his hand on D-16’s shoulder. ‘It sounds like you need someone to run a hash on you.’

‘Maybe. Or I just need better sleep.’ D-16 chuckled good-naturedly. Orion’s spark felt a little lighter. He can’t tell if D-16’s just dense or he’s pretending he’s not taking the hint from Prowl of what is a proposal for an act of intimacy.

‘Well? Go to bed!’ Prowl tipped his helm in the direction of the barracks, and D-16 gave a little grumble jokingly before walking off to rest. Orion watched him, before Prowl gave Orion’s back a nudge. Orion turned around and met Jazz’s face.

‘You did this, didn’t you?’ Jazz jabbed a finger at Orion lightheartedly.

‘Me?’

‘That wasn’t a question.’ Prowl dismissed. ‘My calculations tell me that Jazz speaks in rhetoricals eighty-seven percent of the time.’

Jazz gasped in fake incredulity. ‘You keep track?’

‘Sometimes. Also chances of Orion messing with D-16’s defragmentation is ninety-nine percent.’ 

‘My, my.’ 

Orion forced down his rage and instead opted for a smile. ‘C’mon guys, lighten up. Why would I even do that? What’ll even be my reason?’

Jazz tilted his head. Prowl opened his mouth to probably propose his logical theory, but Jazz elbowed him in the chassis as a silent gesture to shut him up. ‘You’re right. Anyway, wanna smuggle some energon jelly cubes before curfew?’

‘I’m invited?’ 

‘Sure.’ Jazz smiled. He looked over to Prowl, and Prowl stared pointedly back at him. 

‘Prowl’s– not– coming–!’ Jazz sang in mockery. 

‘Killjoy,’ Orion agreed.

Jazz flicked Prowl in the face and skipped off. Orion exchanged a look with Prowl which spelt out my calculations are telling me you will break protocol and get caught. And Orion loved to do things out of spite to prove the likes of others wrong. So he half-stumbled, half-jogged after Jazz. 

 ✦✧✦

When Orion came back with Jazz, a couple of jelly cubes tucked in his chassis and one in his mouth, it was already mid-lunar cycle. Luckily, neither of them got caught. So Prowl can suck on that. Jazz stretched and yawned, saying something about recharging before heading off. Orion strained his audials to make sure Jazz plugged in before he walked over to his section. He sighed as he sank into his own station, staring at D-16’s lovely face. 

D-16’s eyes opened. Orion nearly yelped in surprise. He swallowed the jellycube instead.

‘Why are you awake?’ Orion whispered incredulously.

D-16’s blue optics were piercing. He whispered back, urgently. ‘I want to– Wait. Is that energon jelly?’

‘Um. Yes.’

D-16 waved it off. ‘Can we talk?’

Orion sighed. He needed to share the jelly cubes with someone. Plus, he can show Dee the rooftop hideaway.

‘Yeah. Come with me.’ He tossed a jelly cube in D-16’s direction and walked towards the roof. He could hear D-16’s clumsy steps behind him, so he didn’t bother turning back and checking.

‘Woah.’ D-16 breathed when they reached the rooftop. The yellow lights of Iacon glinted off his face and fought for dominance against his blue optics. Orion looked back at D-16 and found him breathtaking.

Orion sat down on the edge, his peds dangling off just like that other night, before Darkwing showed up. D-16 tentatively followed suit, sitting next to Orion but allowing space between them.

‘This is beautiful.’ He said, after a moment of contemplation.

‘I’ve been meaning to bring you here.’ Orion admitted, his peds swaying, ‘I guess now’s good. It’s private, and you get to air out what you want to say.’

More silence.

‘You’re very important to me,’ D-16 began, and Orion felt his spark spin a little faster, ‘I’m really afraid of losing you. You appeared in my dream. I thought about what it was like to have a future – to be able to choose my destiny. I became supervisor, and although I’ll never get a cog, I saw what it was like for me to get close to living life like one. I saw you at my side, happy for me, and hugging me.’ He paused, looking at Orion. ‘You’re my best friend. I know you may not think that – but you are. Nothing's gonna change that.’ He placed his servo in the gap between them. Orion cautiously laid his servo over D-16’s in silent trust over D-16’s vulnerability. 

‘Do you really believe that? Do you really believe you can be promoted to supervisor, with me as your friend?’ Orion asked, tentatively. This wasn’t exactly what he expected to talk about. He expected Darkwing. Orion guessed that it was partially his fault for not cleaning up after himself properly. But part of it felt – exhilarating. Maybe he should do this more often so D-16 can talk more like this.

‘Yes. If not, you’re going to work under me. I’ll still be your best friend. I want to be supervisor, and play stratball with you everyday.’ D-16 smiled, his eyes looking off into the city. One of the more expensive accommodations, no doubt – envisioning a luxurious abode fit for a cogged bot.

Orion couldn’t help but indulge. Breaking Dee out of this reverie would be too cruel.

He felt D-16’s fingers nudge at his and Orion turned to face D-16.

‘Can I touch your face?’

‘What for?’

‘I want to check your eye.’

Orion tensed up. He felt D-16’s servo below his brace to leave at Orion’s denial.

‘...Yeah. Sure. Just, um, move away when I ask.’ He watched D-16 sag and nod feverishly.

Orion focused his optic on D-16’s face, counting scars and crevices and holding onto his face so that he won’t get distracted by unpleasant memories. It’s D-16 – his best friend – touching him. 

His servo digit against his faceplate did feel like fire, a little bit. His circuitry flared in warning, in fear and panic. Orion forced that feeling down, leaning in to force D-16 to keep going. D-16 slid his fingertips along Orion’s cheek guard, then a whole finger section, then the knuckles, then his whole palm cupped Orion’s helm, his fingertips pressed against the edge of his audials and his thumb against his face vents. Orion let out a shaky exhale.

D-16’s servo felt warm. Darkwing’s servo felt so cold. Orion leaned in, in hopes of basking in more of the warmth.

Darkwing’s servo was so large. It probably could reach around and cup Orion’s audial and then some. He could probably reach all the way around and suffocate Orion.

D-16’s were so much smaller than that, but his hands could reach around and cup Orion’s helm in a loving and gentle embrace. He was so much larger than Darkwing. 

Larger than life itself.

D-16’s fingertips moved upwards, towards Orion’s defected eye. Orion flinched, but didn’t say no. D-16’s light touch stroked over Orion’s defected optic, flickering from orange to red. D-16 leaned his face in, their helms impossibly close with each other. Orion gulped. Before he could process, he thought to ask–

‘Can I kiss you?’

Slag. I didn’t mean to ask that out loud. D-16 retracted his hand and leaned back a little in confusion.

‘What’s kiss?’

I dug this grave. I might as well lie in it.

‘It’s something that organic life used to do. They match intakes. All those years ago. You’re only supposed to do it with someone important to you.’ He could see Dee’s optics glow a little from the recognition that he was important to Orion.

‘What made you want to do that?’ D-16 said slowly, seeming to choose his words carefully to make sure Orion doesn’t retreat back into his shell again.

Orion looked exasperated. D-16 gave him a pointed look. They’re going nowhere with this. Orion let out a huff. ‘I tried it recently. I want to try it with you.’

D-16 frowned, seemingly in a little petty envy. ‘Who did you try it with?’

Orion looked away, his optics dimming a little in shame. His fuel lines crackled. ‘…Darkwing.’

An incredulous silence.

‘Look, I know it sounds bad but—’ ‘You’ve got to stop brushing this off—’

They looked at each other. One with optics of worry, the other with annoyance.

‘You know what, I changed my mind.’ Orion waved D-16’s look of concern off. He shifted to leave, folding his peds to his chest to stand up.

By the time he rose, he felt a servo grab at his arm. Orion looked down, seeing Dee’s melancholic face, framed by the shining lights of Iacon city, reflecting off his silver helm and his blue optics. He could see how every blue joint in his servo lit and absorbed the yellow lights from below and reflected his purple armour back into Orion’s optics.

‘Pax, please.’ Dee pleaded, and Orion felt his spark flip in his chassis. He watched his best friend’s optics shift, trying to search for the words to stop Orion from withdrawing again, leaving both completely alone with their unspoken feelings. ‘ Orion — I’m begging you. Stay. Talk to me.’

Orion stared at D-16, wide-eyed. Dee has never called him that. His face began flushing with energon, his optics frantically searching for any hint of a joke or a prank on Dee’s face – but it was deadpan.

‘You can’t be serious.’ Orion forced out a chuckle, and he felt D-16 drag him down beside him. Orion choked a little from the sudden force as Dee slammed him into an embrace. The panel to Orion’s processing port flipped open instinctively, before closing again when there was nothing to plug it with.

‘I’m really worried about you.’ Dee had a crack in its voice that Orion really didn’t like. ‘Don’t go. I’m tired of watching you leave and come back with markings and bandages.’ He pulled away, and Orion suddenly missed the rough embrace of D-16 instead of having to meet his gaze. ‘Your neck, the scratches in your chassis, ever since that bandage over your eye – You’ve stopped talking to me. You’ve been talking at me.’ 

Orion buried himself in the comfort of D-16’s chassis instead. He could hear D-16’s systems whirr a bit faster, his plate slowly heating up more from Orion’s intimate gesture. Orion’s frame sagged against the warmth and D-16 let out a sigh of relief.

They stayed like this for a while. The two said nothing. D-16 stiffly placed his servo on Orion’s back, smoothing his fingers along his spinal strut. Orion shivered, his fingers gripping tighter and nearly crumpling his armour. Orion let out a whisper that was barely audible. ‘... Hurts.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Don’t touch there. It hurts.’ He said quietly. Orion thought of how gentle Darkwing’s servos were on his back, exactly where D-16’s stiff fingers pressed.

‘Okay.’ D-16 moved his hand up to support the back of Orion’s helm, and Orion squeezed his eyes shut.

‘Not there either.’ He whispered. Fingers trailed down to his shoulder armour, cupping the curved ends of it.

‘Is this okay?’

‘Yeah.’ Orion croaked. He felt D-16 rub small circles around his mini smokestacks, trailing his fingertips up and down, slowly relaxing his movements as well.

‘Do you want to uh, talk about it?’ D-16 cleared his throat. He probably didn’t expect his words to work that well.

‘Not really.’ Orion mumbled, moving his arms to wrap them fully around D-16’s waist. He traced his servo digits along the seams of his frame, feeling every scratch and dent. He could also feel D-16 tense underneath him every time he prodded a sensitive part. ‘Can I kiss you?’ He repeated.

The silence dragged for so long. Orion can only hear the energon rushing in his audials and the pulse of energon below his fingertips going faster.

‘First, tell me what happened with Darkwing.’ D-16 said sternly, and then softened, ‘then, if you tell me exactly what is going to happen,’ D-16's voice was quiet. A soft rumble against Orion’s fingertips and his cheek against his chassis. ‘I trust you to kiss me.’

Orion grimaced. He thought about which would be better – just interfacing and showing him, or to just tell him what happened. He then remembered compartmentalisation–

‘Darkwing hardlined me.’ He began, but like a plug pulled out of an engex bottle, the rest just kept pouring out like a stream, and Orion couldn’t stop. ‘It wasn’t good. But I was stupid. I showed my weakness too clearly – and he scratched me, and strangled me. He nearly threw me off this roof. He also knew about us being close. I don’t want to hurt your chances of becoming supervisor. So I’ve been avoiding you. I’m afraid to lose you too, but I want to protect you. I’ve been bad at that, so maybe if I just stay away, the danger will go away too. But it’s fine. He poked my eye out – he always does that, and Jazz helped me. He patched me up after I got beat up. But that’s different. It’s okay, I bit Darkwing’s tongue off. It was pretty funny.’

D-16 leaned in so his helm clinked against Orion’s. He simply whispered, ‘thank you.’

Orion squirmed. D-16 hushed him gently. ‘I’m not asking for more. We can talk more another time.’ He sat back, his hands still around Orion’s shoulders. ‘Now tell me about kissing.’

Orion tried to turn his processing power away from trying to process anything related to what he just said to Dee and just focus on the task at hand. He gently moved D-16’s servos to his chassis instead, so that D-16 could brace against him. He met D-16’s eyes, and said, ‘I will lean in, and touch here,’ he touched his lips, ‘to here,’ he then moved his servo digit to D-16’s lips. ‘It will be quick, maybe a couple milliseconds, maybe a couple seconds. Depends. Some bots add their glossa but that gets messy and more sexual. I’m not going to do that.’

D-16 nodded slowly, his hexagonal optics shifting a little in uncertainty. Orion immediately gave into his anxious pings and warnings.

‘We don’t have to. This is just a stupid idea I didn’t even want to talk about it, honestly, this is stupid–’

D-16 shook his head slowly. ‘I want this.’ His fingers drew circles along Orion’s chassis in reassurance. Orion trembled underneath him. 

‘Okay.’ He said shakily. 

Orion steeled himself with a couple of deep breaths, then he shifted so that their faceplates were level with each other. He leaned in, before moving away again, quickly, seeing D-16’s intense stare. 

‘You know, um, you can close your optics… If you want.’

‘Ah, um.’ D-16 looked sheepish, his optics flitting away and then back at Orion. ‘I want to see your face. When you um, kiss me.’

Orion blinked. Primus. He’s really in love with his best friend.

‘Okay. I’m going to kiss you now.’ Orion placed his servos down, in front of him to support himself without touching D-16, and leaned in.

D-16 was warm. A lot warmer than Orion. It flushed warmer, warmer, even warmer. Orion’s optics were offlined instinctively, but he could feel D-16 stiffen, and wondered what D-16 saw with his optics. It wasn’t soft, it wasn’t the pliable, plush feeling of Darkwing’s lips. It was something infinitely better. It was D-16’s rough derma, the scratches sustained from biting too hard; chewing too fast eating fried alloy sticks. It was the taste of the shitty energon cubes he had for breakfast. It was the smell of ozone, the metallic stench of the mines absorbed into his plating and protoform and every crevice that can never come out from the polish. It was the same lips that Dee expressed his worry, that quivered when he cried, that stuck out when he pouted. The lips that stretched when he smiled.

Orion felt a pair of strong servos on his chassis, pushing him away gently so that he was separated from D-16, but only by a small increment. Their lips ghosted over each other as D-16 gasped and panted for air.

Slag, he forgot he needed to breathe between kisses. Orion felt a smile between deep breaths. Both shaking, exhilarated.

‘That was nice.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Mmm.’ D-16 touched his lips, then Orion’s. ‘Woah.’

A sound escaped Orion’s vocaliser before he could even cut it off. Was it a laugh? He’s laughing. He watched Dee’s optics slowly crease into a thin glowing line. Liquid energon swirling at the bottom of a glass. A moon at its waning gibbous. 

D-16 snickered, his helm falling forwards and nudged against Orion’s chassis. 

‘To think a kiss can get you to be honest with me.’

‘Don’t get cocky now.’ Orion grumbled. ‘Not going to work every time.’

D-16’s laughter subsided as he slowly lifted his face up, his optics meeting with Orion again with determination.

‘Oh really?’

‘Mhm.’

D-16 pondered for a moment, before a rare smirk played upon his lips. ‘I want more secrets out of you yet.’ His hands traced up and down Orion’s chassis, now deducing that this region also doesn’t ‘hurt.’ ‘Tell me, oh wondrous Orion Pax, what’s your winning strategy at stratball, and I’ll let you in on another kiss.’

The prospect of another uncorrupted union of touch had Orion skipping a beat. 

Is this love? It didn’t matter.

‘For tonight only, I’ll make an exception for talking.’ Orion leaned in so their noses touched. 

D-16’s blue optics had a little reflection of Orion’s yellow mixed into them.

‘Careful. If you offer yourself up like this, I’ll keep taking.’

Orion grinned.

‘Go on, take more. I have more than enough to give.’