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The day of the first great Iacon Grand Prix dawns shockingly bright and pleasant and Swindle has, to his enormous surprise, the best seats on the track.
("It's for charity," Blurr had said, cheerfully.
Swindle's optics had flickered. "I don't do charity, boss, you know that."
"I'm not expecting you to. Most of the donors are NAILs, actually, they're the ones with money to burn." Blurr beams at him. "It's just that I'm able to bring a couple of guests, and I thought you might enjoy it. It's trackside seating, right up at the starting line, you'll get a very good view.")
Despite the name, it's not, technically speaking, a race. There are no winners, no losers, no prize money, although there is an award of some kind for the most laps completed within the time limit of the event. It is, however, the first event of its kind to be held since people started living on Cybertron again, organized by Starscream (who's naturally being unbearable about it) and Windblade (who's nice in a way Swindle finds little unsettling) and that mech Override from Velocitron (who's extremely annoying in a way that Swindle actually appreciates) to fund the construction and repair of buildings that people can actually live in. Most of the racers are already squirming at the starting line—Swindle can see a few Camien mechs, a few from Velocitron, Drag Strip and Offroad (who are apparently out on parole for today just for this event and who hopefully don't see him), a few folks off the Lost Light (including Drift, and also Rodimus himself in all his obnoxious flash)…it's a good-looking slate of racers, and he is, in fact, running a book, he keeps getting pings on today's burner commline from enthusiastic gamblers.
Blurr doesn't come out until the opening announcements are already starting, the dramatic jack, flashing a broad smile at the excited yelling from the stands—not enough of that, in Swindle's opinion, and then he has to take a klik to wonder when he starting having opinions about how excited other people should be to see Blurr. He listens to the announcements with one audial, takes a few more bets, claps a little bit—
The starting gun goes off and suddenly Blurr's leaning over the wall, grinning at him, as he sputters, "Shouldn't you be racing?"
"Oh, I've got time." The confidence in Blurr's voice is almost infuriating. "Just-figured-I'd-grab-some-good-luck-before-I-go."
"How you figure you're gonna—"
Blurr kisses him.
At least sixty percent of Swindle's non-essential processes completely stall out for a moment, and his fuel pump hiccups.
"Thanks-Swin-might-be-back-for-a-top-up-after-a-fewlapsseeyouinabit!"
Swindle stammers out, "H-hey, I oughtta charge you for that!" as soon as his vocalizer's back online, but of course by that time Blurr's already long gone.
A klik after that the burner commline starts blowing up with accusations that he's fixing the race, and so that keeps him occupied for a bit as the racers blow past the starting line again and again and again.
When Blurr hits 300 laps he stops again, draping himself over the track wall with steam rising from his frame and a slightly manic look on his face. "More good luck please."
Swindle stares at him. "Since when am I good luck for anyone besides myself?"
"Think-about-it-I-know-you're-taking-bets-the-better-I-do-the-better-you-do!"
Which isn't exactly unbeatable logic, it's not like he's told Blurr how folks are betting, but also Swindle's having some difficulty marshalling actual arguments with Blurr smiling at him like that, so he just says, "Uh, sure, ok," and Blurr kisses him again and then vanishes onto the track once more as a number of people in the crowd start catcalling.
His systems don't stall this time, but it's a near thing, and then it's back to, "No, I'm not fixing the race, what do you take me for? Just 'cause I got a business relationship with one'a the racers—what do you mean, that doesn't look like business, that's between him and me, isn't it?"
Except that it has just been business up to now. Not a formal arrangement or anything, but—Swindle likes Maccadam's, likes the way it has a few nice dark booths to sit in and the exits are easy to spot, and Blurr appreciates having someone to hand who can source product for him and actually knows how to handle an account book. On-and-off work, when Blurr needs something, and Swindle only calls him "boss" because it's the kind of thing you call someone when you want to be in their good graces for future business. It definitely hasn't been a kissing thing before this, no kind of romance thing at all that Swindle's noticed, so either Blurr's really good at keeping secrets or Swindle's getting slow in the processor.
The lap counter next to Blurr's name on the big board hits 600 and Blurr pulls up to the wall and says, "HeySwindlehow'sbusinessIhaven'thadthismuchfuninvorns," and kisses him a third time. A significant portion of the crowd near them breaks into whoops of laughter and cheering and lascivious whistles.
Swindle says, "Business is fine. You still feeling lucky?"
"OhsurebutIcouldbeluckier," and Blurr kisses him again and then rushes off.
It's an endurance race, obviously, not a set number of laps, and over the next cycle and a half Swindle receives (or maybe gives), by his count, five more kisses, which is only a large number if you're increasingly flustered about it.
After the last one, which happens when the race ends and there are a lot of cameras pointed their way, Swindle says, steaming a bit himself, "I think we maybe oughtta talk some about redefining the parameters of this business relationship, boss."
"Ohprobablyyeahgoodpoint-I-hope-I-didn't-make-you-too uncomfortable, did I?"
Swindle glances sidelong at all the reporters, thinking about it for a moment before replying. "Nah, I'm good," which, translated from keeping-it-cool-ese, means something more like, I'm not clear on how I got so lucky but I know a good thing when I grab it and run. "Wanna give 'em one more for the newsfeeds?"