Work Text:
(OPTIMUS continues to swing his axe. His face is set in grim determination for the AUTOBOT cause.)
OPTIMUS: Know this, Megatron! Whether I die by your hand or you by mine, this will be our last fight! MEGATRON: I know it will, for I know something you do not!
OPTIMUS: And what is that?
(With a well-placed leg swing, MEGATRON takes him down, pinning the prime with a sword to the neck, their faceplates so close that condensation springs up, vents rattling with each inhale.)
MEGATRON: I know that you do not wish to see my energon upon this battlefield, no...rather...you wish the things you can only fantasize about in your berth, yes?
OPTIMUS: M-Megatron...
MEGATRON: I see the way you stare, the way your optics slide over me...did you know that Kaon courtship is all about battle? All about getting the upper hand? You’ve done well, beloved, but I will have you submit to me, and I will take you as my cons-
“Hey, TC, did you already-what are you doing?”
Thundercracker let out a devastating shriek as he scrambled away from his keys, slamming the minimize button as he swings around, servos flailing before falling in a semi-casual pose, holding his helm up a bit. “I-Heeeeey, Dancer, my favorite trinemate, how is it goooiiing?”
Skywarp stared at him, optics flicking between him and the now blank screen and back again.
And to Thundercracker’s horror, a smirk crawled on his face, one servo on his hip as he took a very Starscream-like pose. “Well well well! Boomer’s got secrets! C’mon, you know you wanna share with your Dancer? I can tooootally keep a secret.”
He could not. They both knew that.
This was going to be the crux of a fifty-eight vorn story, only on the second arc. He had fans he couldn’t disappoint! Knock Out had begged him, had even sent BRIBES for an update this year! Plus the fact Strika was now a staple in their lives once more courtesy of Bulkhead, and her burning optics that stared at him when she wasn’t busy flirting bored into him each and every solar-cycle.
This was something spoken of in hushed whispers on forums lest any higher-ups hear and think it be real (which, they were definitely unaware of what was going on on Earth, so...). They already toed the line intently with the fact that Jazz had stumbled upon it, but apparently he found it so amusing that he helped scramble the IP and keep it hidden, so long as Thundercracker kept updating and didn’t leave them in the dust.
Which was fair! He loved writing, not just this, but anything!
But it was...hard to sneak away sometimes to write without drawing attention, especially now that they had much more around them and were ‘getting along’ so to speak.
Primus, if they knew that this was much less a little fantasy and much more something hooked in reality, they’d be howling in laughter! Maybe.
He once saw a joke about this being sent to Sentinel to make him jealous. That’d be amazing. But also incredibly embarrassing.
And all this time, he’d kept his hobby secret from his trinemates. Starscream was interested in writing but didn’t care for something like ‘fanfiction’, while Skywarp hardly sat still enough for a short meeting much less reading a 500k slowburn.
It was like telling your creators about your hobby! ...actually, less, since neither of them were related to him, but equally embarrassing!
Skywarp stared at him.
He stared back, feeling his vents flare a bit nervously, grin on his face wavering.
Skywarp raised an optic ridge, smirk growing.
“Don’t...don’t you da-“
“STARSCREAM, TC’S GOT A SECRET!”
“YOU-!”
He warped away with a cackle, the smell of ozone popping into the fray as he went to reach out to him, cursing his slowness.
Thundercracker covered his faceplates with a groan, hiding for a moment in his servos. He could already hear Screamer’s squawk from afar, despite knowing he was on the roof repairing a few things from when the sky tried to attack them last week.
The organic-Sorry? Scary? Sari!-called it ‘hail’ but didn’t know what the Earth was hailing. Thundercracker knew it was an attempt at an attack, though. Someone’s ability to create sharp ice raining down on them.
No one else seemed concerned, though. But oh, when the enemy raised their helm from wherever they hid, TC would be the one to gloat that he was right!
...ew, Starscream was rubbing off on him.
Pop and then Skywarp was dropping a hissing Screamer on his lap, a sharp kick missing Skywarp by a wing’s tip as the warper cackled and danced away. “He’s got a secret, a secret, a secret~!”
“YOU GET BACK HERE-wait, secret?!” he clapped his servos to Thundercracker’s face, the mech staring at him with a very put-upon expression. “Boomer, tchere are no secrets in the trine! You know tchis! Come come, spill your secrets, so tchat we may share togetcher!”
Not entirely true. There could be secrets in trines, and in conjunx, and in amica. It was just less common than it would be for the common mech.
Plus, Starscream was royalty, even though it had been millenia since Cybertron ever acknowledged Vos as such. They had this whole thing about being truthful to your trinemates, always doing things ‘proper’, etc.
Honestly, he was pretty sure if Starscream didn’t dislike being told what to do so much, he and Optimus might’ve gotten along like ‘a house on fire’ (an Earth idiom he learned! How quaint!) considering how much they were all about ideals and things.
Meanwhile, here he was, writing smut about the leaders.
...slow-burn smut.
...really...really slow burn...
“It-It’s not a secret-it’s nothing! It’s fine!” he tried to wave off the squeezing servos as Skywarp danced behind him, flinging himself over the chair to try and get at the keyboard as he swatted at him instead. “Warp, I swear-“
“I wanna see, I wanna see-“
“Secrets cause rifts in trinemates, and we need to be strong in tche face of strife-!”
“Screamer, the most strife we’ve had was Bee yelling at Blurr-DON’T TOUCH THAT!”
They all froze, Skywarp’s finger dangling dangerously close to the power down button. On the screen, the notepad he’d been using to write was halfway across the screen, so you could only see Optimus and Megatron’s names now and then.
Starscream squinted, staring between him and the screen, tilting his helm as he shifted to sit up, patting his helm like an errant sparkling. “It is okay, Boomer! If our leaders have you doing too many reports, I shall go yell at them!”
“Please do not,” he muttered as Skywarp tried to steal the mouse from him. “No!”
“Yes!”
“Guys, can’t I have like, one little thing to myself? Please?”
“Nope,” Skywarp said, dangling off his chair again as he kept snatching at the mouse, hissing when Thundercracker turned pleading eyes to their prince.
And look, Thundercracker knew Starscream. They’d been trined since before the war, before they even got to fly on their own even. Younglings following the prince around on unstable pedes, holding onto his servos as he exuded grace that felt unusual from one so young. Starscream didn’t just dislike secrets, he loathed them. Secrets hurt you.
They could kill you.
But, this wasn’t a secret tunnel that could collapse at any time. It wasn’t even an injury. It was something fun and exciting that, at most, would merely get him a dressing down from Optimus and a hearty laugh from Megatron who knew no shame.
So he thought, you know, he was allowed this little respite away from the world, this little notion of fun that was Away From Others, something foreign to them on Vos where any new thing was always shared among family and trine.
He just wanted to keep it to himself for a little while longer.
And maybe Starscream saw that, or perhaps this time on Earth was good for him, easing the anxious spikes that tended to come part and parcel with him being him, because all he did was pat his cheek with a smile, darting to peck a kiss to his helm as he stood up, one hand on his hip just as Skywarp did earlier. “Neh, neh, Dancer. Leave Boomer alone to his whims. He will tell us in time, I am sure, yes?” Sure, he could agree to that. “Good! Besides, if tchose Uttobots get wind of tchis, tchey’ll be soooo annoying about it. Meh meh meh, group meeting tchis and ‘let’s talk it out’ tchat.” He stuck his glossa out, as if he didn’t enjoy lobbing incredibly loud arguments with the others whenever he had the opportunity to.
Skywarp whined as he was snagged from the air, Starscream dragging him away. “Unfaaaaair, booo, hiss! I’ll report this for frattingnizating or whatever!”
Starscream chittered something that sounded very much similar to ‘I’d like to see you try’ as they left, and Thundercracker reigned in the need to correct Warp that it was ‘fraternization’ not...whatever mangled mess of glyphs he’d spat out.
But then that meant he’d come back, and he really, REALLY had to finish this last part up.
He waits a bit, to ensure Warp doesn’t fulfill his name, then slowly turns back around to start pulling up files with a sigh.
(He whines in author’s notes about his trinemates being too snoopy and asks fans if they liked this one.
InYourFace gave yet another series of firework emojis.
BetterThanYou sent another praising paragraph that made him feel lighter than air.
And of course, Strika sent ‘more’ and KO sent several pleading memes to have them kiss, something both have kept up for the past few decades after they found it.
Well, they’ll just have to wait, he thinks, saving everything to his files in a drive he hides deep in his subspace.
Bee’s asked him to join the monthly board game night, and he DOES need a break from staring at the screen all day long...
He’ll be back, though.
He’d hate to leave his readers wanting.)