Chapter Text
Orion Pax rounded the corner toward the lockers, looking — to nobot's surprise — for a certain grey mech with gold optics. Built like a tank, with no obvious strength cap that Orion had been able to find so far.
D-16 was, by Orion's estimate, either off somewhere resting between the first and second of their two shifts, or out on one of his walks.
Orion called it brooding. D called it necessary maintenance to recover from dealing with your aft, Pax — which was, Orion privately assumed, a cover for just wanting alone time, full stop. It was fair. Bots in the mines didn't get much of it. Every space down here was shared with somebot; even recharge happened in a row.
But it had been over a joor now, and Orion really wanted D's opinion on the new racing game half the crew was suddenly running in their HUDs, courtesy of Sideswipe's — Orion refused to think the word contraband — magic.
He turned down the third row of lockers, hoping for luck, or at least intel. Somebot had to have seen his bestfriend last. It wasn't like he could ping him: comms had been down since the start of the cyber-week, and what signal was left had been slashed to the shift supervisors and nobot else.
Halfway down the row, he found a familiar white and pink femme at her locker.
"Hey! Arcee, have you seen—"
The question died in his intake.
Arcee's optics flicked over to him, and she lowered a small, shiny metallic tube of something light blue away from her dermas.
Orion's optic ridges drew together. Her dermas were coated in it — a glossy blue that sat against the pale rose-gold of her faceplate like it had been put there on purpose. Which it clearly had. He just couldn't work out why.
"…Why are you painting your dermas?" A beat, and then, because he couldn't help himself: "Speaking from experience, it doesn't taste good. And I don't think it's going to add much flavor to the energon we get down here." He chuckled.
"It's not paint," Arcee smiled. "And what do you mean, from experience?"
Orion's processor helpfully — unhelpfully — pulled the file. An entire rotation flat on a medical berth with a tank ache that could have registered on seismic equipment, a very displeased medic doing a lot of grumbling and a fair amount of shouting, and D standing at the pede of the berth glaring at him like he was calculating the force required to punt Orion into the next planet over. Which, okay. Fair. But in his defense, the tin in Wheeljack's lab had been labeled fuel, and it had been shiny, and bluer than any energon he'd ever seen, and he'd been running on what felt like nearly empty—
"Well…"
"Let me guess," Arcee chuckled. "Wheeljack?"
"The tin said fuel, and I was starving! How was I supposed to know?!"
Arcee laughed harder.
Orion pressed his dermas together to keep a smile of his own from cracking through. It mostly worked.
"If it's not paint that's on your dermas," he went on, with as much dignity as a mech who had once consumed a lab sample could muster, "then what is it?"
"It's called dermastick," Arcee said.
"Dermastick."
"Yep." She held the small tube up again — cylindrical, smooth, about the length of her digit. To Orion's untrained optics, it looked like a nicely packaged stick of energon candy.
"Does it taste good?"
"Wha— NO! You don't eat it, Pax," Arcee said, shaking her helm, looking mildly alarmed on the tube's behalf. "It's color. For your dermas. Decorative, temporary. Not toxic like paint is, and it doesn't taste like anything."
"Huh. Interesting," Orion hummed. He leaned in closer, helm tilting, observing the small tube from all angles, fully intending to absorb every available data point.
"Where did you get it?"
"I saw an ad. Up on the surface, during my last rest rotation. Chromia was wearing it — you know, the up-and-coming cyan femme? Cogged, ran in the last Iacon 5000, racecar alt-mode?"
"The femme Darkwing crashed into the magnetic field mid-transformation? Which totally should have been a race violation, by the way. The afthole definitely did it on purpose—"
"He definitely did," she agreed solemnly. "But either way. She was on a display panel wearing it, and I thought—" Arcee shrugged. "Why not treat myself to something? I liked the color. So I saved up. Took a while, but I found a vendor in the market who sold them in sets."
"Sets?"
"Different colors." Arcee produced a second tube from her locker. Identical in shape, different in shade — this one's metal cap was a bright, saturated red that glowed faintly in the tunnel's ambient light. "Blue and red. They were running a two-for-one."
Orion stared at the red-capped tube. His optics were doing the thing — wide, bright, and fascinated. He reached toward it.
"Can I—"
Arcee held it out. Orion took it gently, turning it over in his digits, examining it from every angle. Light. Smooth. Cool against his plating.
"So… how do I open it — without breaking it?"
Arcee chuckled, her blue optics bright and amused. "Just twist and pull from the base, Orion. It doesn't take much. Be careful with it."
Orion nodded and did as told. The top separated with a soft click.
Up close, in his own servos, he could see that the dermastick itself was a firm gel — bright red like the cap, solid enough to hold its shape, but light enough in his palm that he guessed it would give under the slightest pressure.
It glowed with a subtle luminescence, the pigment catching the tunnel light with a sheen that sat somewhere between matte and metallic.
"Wow," Orion vented, tilting it toward the light. "It's pretty shiny."
Arcee smiled. She brought the blue dermastick back up to her intake and drew it across her lower derma in one practiced stroke. Then the upper. The color settled — bright, even, SHIMMERING — turning the natural metallic grey of her dermas into a luminous blue that matched her optics almost exactly.
"And unlike paint, there's no risk of rust if it gets scratched," Arcee explained. "It wears off over the course of a rotation, or you can just wipe it away."
"I see. But what's the purpose of it?" Orion frowned. "It looks nice, but — is it just for the sake of color?"
"It's for the sake of looking good, Pax." Arcee grinned, light blue dermas still shimmering in the light.
"Huh," Orion hummed, turning the tube over in his digits again. The concept was settling in his processor, quietly rearranging his understanding of what was possible. Color. Just color. Applied to your own frame because you WANTED it there, because it looked NICE, because beauty was a reason in itself.
The mines didn't have a lot of room for aesthetics, or for beauty-as-reason. The mines had function and quota and survival and very little else. The idea that a bot could put color on their dermas simply because they wanted to was — it was a small revolution.
A tiny, personal, deeply appealing revolution.
He went to touch the red gel with his digit. Just to feel the texture, just to understand the material, just to—
"Are your servos CLEAN?"
Orion's digit froze. A hair from the surface.
"Uh… define 'clean'…"
"Orion Pax, do NOT contaminate my dermastick with your mining grime—"
"Hey! Your servos are dusty too—"
"—I don't touch the gel with my servos, Orion. Especially not when it's going anywhere near my intake," Arcee huffed.
"Okay, okay, fine. I won't touch—" Orion pulled his digit back. His optics went to the tube again instead, the red gel still shimmering in the subpar lighting of the locker row.
He looked at the tube. Looked at Arcee. Looked at the tube again.
"Do you think I can… maybe… try it?"
Arcee regarded him. Her light blue dermas curved into a smile that was fond and warm and carried a very particular amusement.
"For today? Sure," she agreed. "Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't ask sooner," she giggled.
Orion couldn't help the grin that broke across his faceplate. He brought the gel up toward his dermas, already angling to drag it across, when Arcee winced and caught his wrist.
"Wait — actually, I'll do it for you," she said, reconsidering.
"But—"
"I don't want you getting it everywhere. It's your first time, and there's no reflector down here." She let go of his wrist and held her servo out for the tube. "I've done this enough times now that I can make sure it looks good."
"Well, I guess it is your dermastick," Orion shrugged, handing it back. "And honestly, yeah… I wouldn't know where to start. High risk of it ending up in my intake," he chuckled.
"You and your questionable fueling choices. If you're that hungry, fuel break's right after your shift." Arcee shook her helm, amused. "Now sit, please — I'll have a better angle this way." She motioned to the bench in the middle of the locker row.
"Yes, ma'am."
Orion sat. Back straight, helm up, doing absolutely nothing to hide the grin of earnest anticipation on his dermas.
"Look up. Just slightly," Arcee advised.
Orion looked up, blue optics landing on the top shelf of her open locker. Arcee's servos came up to hold his faceplate, tilting his chin to the angle she needed.
"Relax your dermas."
"They're relaxed."
"They're not. You're pressing them together. Let them be soft."
Orion tried. The result was — he was trying too hard. His dermas went through several configurations — pressed (again), then forcibly separated, then taut, then a strange half-open position that looked more confused than relaxed — before finally settling into something approximating their natural resting state.
"Better," Arcee smiled.
She leaned in toward his faceplate, optics focused on his intake with a professional concentration Orion found reassuring, and also — given they were two miners in a locker row — kind of funny.
"Hold still," Arcee murmured, and the dermastick touched his lower derma.
The sensation was — novel. The gel was slightly cool, and, as he'd guessed, firm but yielding, leaving behind a coating he could feel as a faint weight on his dermas. Foreign, but not uncomfortable.
Arcee drew the dermastick across his lower derma in a single, confident stroke — left to right, even pressure, an efficient, practiced motion.
"Upper," she said. Orion adjusted his intake, and she repeated the stroke across his upper derma with the same smooth efficiency.
"There." Arcee pulled back and examined her work with a critical optic. "Now press your dermas together. Gently. A few times. Let the color settle and distribute."
Orion pressed his dermas together. Once. Twice. Three times. Lightly, as instructed. He could feel the dermastick working — the gel warming against his plating, the pigment transferring and evening out, the color becoming part of his dermas rather than something sitting on top of them.
"How does it look?" Orion beamed, leaning back on the bench, red dermas now fully on display.
"Woah." Arcee blinked, optic ridges lifting. She took his faceplate in her servos, tilting his helm side to side, inspecting her handiwork. "It looks GOOD."
"Why do you sound so surprised?" Orion asked, amused.
"It's just—" Arcee motioned at his frame. "The red actually matches your chassis. That's — huh. That's really good, Orion."
"Oh!" Orion looked at the tube, then down at his own chassis — the red plating of his frame, the specific shade he'd worn his entire functioning and never once thought about in cosmetic terms. "It does! Wow, okay — that's pretty cool!" He grinned.
"It's like it was made for you," she smiled.
"Now you're just flattering me," Orion chuckled, waving a servo at her. "But thanks! It feels nice — my dermas actually feel a lot smoother."
"Yeah, it has that effect," Arcee nodded. "Something in the formula. I couldn't tell you what — but that's more Wheeljack's domain anyway."
"Fair enough," Orion nodded, standing up. "Anyways — have you seen D? I was looking for him before I ran into you."
He had another reason to find his bestfriend now. The racing game had quietly slid to the back burner behind the new color on his dermas. He wondered what D would think of it.
"I haven't. I'm surprised he's not with you — you two share an orbit, like, ninety percent of the time," Arcee chuckled.
"Well… you know. He is my bestfriend," Orion shrugged, feeling his faceplate warming at the specific tone of her voice.
"Everybot knows," she smiled. "Whether you actually—"
Orion coughed. His faceplate was definitely blue now. He spun on his pede and was already halfway back up the row.
"Well — um, I should get going! Nice seeing you — my shift starts any click now—"
"Forty-five—"
"ANY CLICK NOW!" Orion yelped over her. "UmthanksagainArcee seeyoulater!"
"Orion, wait — it transfers, so be careful where you put your—"
He was already out of the locker row, narrowly dodging a couple of bots on his way through.
Orion's pedes carried him back toward the common hall, still scanning for his bestfriend.
He didn't examine too closely why D's reaction was the one that mattered most. That particular line of inquiry led to a partition in his processor that was locked, encrypted, and not to be opened — because opening it would be selfish in its own right, and Orion cared far too much about D and about their friendship to let it crumble over something that wasn't reciprocated, and would only make everything awkward.
But despite all that, Orion knew one thing: when something good happened, his first impulse — the first bot he wanted to tell, before Jazz, before anybot, before conscious thought — was always D.
That was never going to change.
He peeked into the common hall, looking for a telltale dark grey helm, craning through the entrance at an angle that was going to start hurting if he kept it up—
"Woah!"
Orion turned. A mech from the shaft-three crew — Hoist, dark green, broad-shouldered, and perpetually cheerful — was staring at him. Specifically at his intake.
"What's that on your dermas?" Hoist asked.
Orion chuckled, the red catching the light. It was great, honestly, seeing another bot as curious about it as he'd been a joor ago.
"It's called dermastick! It's like temporary paint for your dermas. Cool, right?"
"That's — yeah, that IS cool." Hoist tilted his helm, examining the color with appreciative interest. "The red really works on you, Orion. Matches your frame."
"Thanks! That's what Arcee said too," Orion grinned. "Have you seen D anywhere?"
"Nah, sorry, mech," Hoist shook his helm. "Did you check the shafts? Moonracer and her crew are just coming back off theirs — shaft eight. Maybe she spotted him."
"Right on, will do," Orion saluted, already jogging off. "Thanks, Hoist!"
Orion arrived at shaft eight, in his humble opinion, record time.
He spotted the green-and-white femme he was after almost immediately — Moonracer, walking back up with Hound, kits in servos, dust in their joints, and that particular slow-cabled flow of movement that told Orion they'd just come off a double themselves.
"Moonracer! Hound!" Orion greeted, jogging over. "Have you seen D in the shafts anywhere?"
"Hey! No, not recently, the—" Moonracer paused, optics flicking to his intake. "Oh, slag, Orion, are you wearing dermastick?" She smiled.
"Derma-what?" Hound frowned.
"Dermastick, Hound. The red stuff, here," Orion grinned, pointing at his intake. "Arcee let me try some. It feels pretty great!"
Hound leaned in a little, examining the glittering red on his dermas. Moonracer was still smiling at him.
Orion couldn't help feeling just a little bit bashful under the two of them, especially with Hound so close. He was — he wasn't used to this. He was used to attention for his ideas, his plans, his schemes, his tendency to be where he shouldn't be. He was not used to attention for how he LOOKED.
It felt nice, in a way.
Still slightly disconcerting, though. He didn't quite know what to do with his servos when bots looked at his faceplate like that.
"You're looking sharp, mech," Hound grinned, stepping back. "Anyway — last I saw D-16 was shaft seven, I think. But that was a joor ago."
"Hah, well, worth a shot. Thanks!" And he was off again, pedes carrying him toward the next shaft over.
Moonracer sighed. "Primus, that mech never stops moving, does he?"
"Nope. When he's committed, he's committed."
"Lucky for D-16," she chuckled.
"Yep." Hound smirked. Then, after a beat: "Hey. Do you think Arcee would let me borrow some of that stuff too?"
"I— maybe? I'm not sure red's your color, though," Moonracer frowned.
"Oh? Then what do you think is my color?"
"Stop fishing for compliments, Houndie."
"Hey! It's a real question—"
Thirty clicks until shift starts, Orion's internal clock supplied.
It was probably accurate. D might have some other opinion on that. But Orion still had to find the mech first.
He rounded the corner into the shaft-seven corridor and nearly collided with Jazz.
Frag. I really do need to start watching where I'm going, Orion thought — and a voice in the back of his processor that sounded a great deal like D's agreed with him.
"Pax! My mech!" Jazz grinned, visor bright, an arm already slung around Orion's pauldron. "Where ya off to — WOW!"
Jazz used the arm as leverage and pulled him in closer, still grinning.
"So you finally got around to tryin' Arcee's little treat-yourself gift. Dermastick, was it?"
"Yeah. You're like the fourth bot to comment on it in the last fifteen clicks," Orion chuckled.
"Well, you're certainly makin' a statement, Pax," Jazz smirked. "Anybot of… particular note… seen you like this yet?"
"Do you count?" Orion grinned.
"Flatterer." Jazz laughed. "No. You know what I mean—"
"Shut up," Orion huffed, a smile on his dermas regardless. "But I am looking for D. Have you seen him?"
"Yeah, I have," Jazz nodded. Orion lit up.
"Where—"
"You gonna show him?" Jazz pointed at his own intake. "You know."
"Yeah, of course! I want to know what he thinks of it. It's cool, isn't it? Temporary paint, purely aesthetic, non-toxic, and—"
"…Orion. You do realize what you're showin' him, right?" Jazz lifted an optic ridge, far too amused for Orion's comfort.
"What?"
"You. Showing," Jazz re-emphasized. "You're showin' him your dermas, Pax. You know. The thing that—"
Orion could feel his faceplate heating up again. "I'm not showing him my dermas, I'm showing him the COLOR on them," he corrected.
Jazz's grin somehow got wider. "You want to show D your dermas, so maybe he'll—" Jazz puckered his own, visor flashing with mirth.
"JAZZ!" Orion squawked, faceplate fully blue for the second time in a joor. "I don't— it's not—" He took a vent. "I just want to show him something I found neat. So. Just… have you seen him?"
"Alright, alright," Jazz conceded with a chuckle, much to Orion's relief. "Last I saw, the mech was headin' down the corridor. Just left shaft seven. I think he's on his way to roll call already — you'd better catch him before he gets there," Jazz smiled.
Orion was already jogging. "Frag, alright. I will. Thanks, Jazz!"
"No problem, mech! Now go show him your DERMAS—" Jazz called after him.
"IT'S COLOR, JAZZ!"
"KEEP TELLIN' YOURSELF THAT!" Jazz sing-songed, and his laughter followed Orion down the corridor — bright and delighted and entirely too knowing — fading into the tunnel noise as Orion picked up speed toward the bend, where the corridor turned toward the next set of shafts.
D-16 was on his way to their crew's second shift of the rotation. He rolled a pauldron, testing. The joint felt less stiff than it had earlier, so it'd probably be fine.
The walk had helped. Focusing on the slow rhythm of his pedesteps against the rock had given him something close to rest, enough to quiet the rumble in his tank for now.
The dispensers had been under repair at the first fuel break. They'd been pouring abnormally short in the early joors, and by midday nothing had changed. Pax, optimistically, believed they'd be fixed by evening. D had decided to play it safe and preserve what he had — especially since he always ran slightly lower than he should, anyway.
Twenty-two clicks before shift, his processor supplied. He turned back the way he had come from and stopped, recalculating. That was probably enough time to find Pax and wrangle his aft over to roll call so they wouldn't b—
"OOMPH!" A familiar voice, right beside him — a frame crashing into his right side and bouncing off with a loud clang against his grey plating.
D caught the mech's arm automatically. Reflex.
He didn't even have to look to know who it was; no other bot would be flying down a mine corridor at speeds the tunnels were not rated for, right before a shift.
D steadied him. "Primus, Pax. You really have to—"
D froze. His optics finally landed on Pax's faceplate.
"—Watch where I'm going — I know, I know," Pax rubbed his forehelm, wincing. "But I really didn't expect you to TURN and STOP walking in the middle of the tunnel!"
D was still staring at his faceplate.
"Seriously, that's a shaft hazard, you know?" Pax chuckled, a smile on his dermas.
Dermas.
Red dermas.
Pax's dermas were red, and—
D's processor then supplied a series of unhelpful, garbled thoughts that he would rather offline than say out loud.
"—and you're the one who's always like, 'You gotta be careful where you're standing, 'cause—'"
They were very red. They matched Pax's chassis to the letter.
Red had always been a good color on him.
"—well, okay, maybe that's more Elita, but my point still stands—"
Pax had gotten closer. Or maybe D had pulled him closer, his own servo still closed around Pax's arm.
He didn't know which one it was.
"—Dee…?" Blue optics flicked back and forth across his faceplate, optic ridges drawing together. Then Pax tilted his helm, and the red on his dermas caught the light and shimmered.
How did venting work, again?
"Hey. Are you okay?" Pax set a gentle servo on his pauldron, and the contact brought D's processor back online with a jolt.
He jerked back, sudden and sharp, putting space between them.
"Dee!" Pax gasped. "Hey, woah — did I crash into you too hard? I'm sorry, I—"
"No — you're fine. It's fine." D waved him off.
"Are you sure? Because your vents are running and—"
"I'm fine, Pax," D managed, optics going back to his bestfriend's faceplate — and flicking straight back to his dermas—
Frag. He needed to get a grip.
D's optics flew to the rough-cut wall behind Pax, opting not to look directly at his bestfriend's faceplate and his very appealing dermas—
He needed to get his venting back in order. Then he could look at Pax again, and then—
"…Do you not like it?" Pax asked.
"What?" Gold optics snapped back to blue ones.
"The red." Pax sent him a wry smile.
"Uh…" And that was all his processor could supply.
"It's okay, Dee. You can be honest," Pax chuckled.
D forced his optics somewhere else. Again.
"I mean, you can't even look at my faceplate right now, so clearly it's bothering you," Pax continued.
"Right," D nodded, dumbly.
"Alright, I'll take it off—"
Pax's digits were reaching for his dermas. Reaching to wipe the red away. To remove the color that was short-circuiting D's processor and restore normal operating conditions.
D's servo caught Pax's wrist.
"No — no, it's fine. You can leave it on."
Pax was looking at him like he'd grown a second helm.
"Dee—"
"You like it, right?" D asked.
Pax blinked, but recovered quickly. "Well, it makes my dermas feel as soft as a newspark's bottom, so I'm not complaining," he chuckled, grinning.
Soft.
It made his dermas feel soft.
Pax's dermas.
Soft.
D cleared his vocalizer. He checked his internal clock. Eleven clicks until shift.
"Then it's fine," D replied, pedes already moving toward shaft twelve. "We should get going. Shift's soon," he added, helm faced firmly forward.
"Oh! Right." Pax nodded, falling in on his left. "Arcee let me borrow the red, by the way — it's called dermastick, and it comes in this tiny metal tube—"
Pax talked the rest of the way, as he often did. D kept his optics forward, his vents cycling down, and lobbed back a few responses and answering noises at the appropriate times.
It was comforting, hearing the familiar jaunt of Pax's pedesteps beside him again.
It was always a bit lonely walking around by himself, anyway.
The shift was the shift. Standard and uninteresting, which D preferred over several of the alternatives.
He was making his way to the common hall alone, with a promise to save Pax a cube. His bestfriend had wandered off after Wheeljack, trying to rope him into some idea about gel consistency and shading — which D surmised was about the dermastick, still on his dermas, having lasted the entire shift with surprisingly little fading.
Not that he'd been looking or anything.
Besides, he'd finally managed to look Pax in the optics during their shift. The minimal lighting had been doing him favors, and not just for spotting ore this time.
So, D was fine. The flips in his tank were from running low, not from the memory of Pax's frame-matched red dermas gleaming in the corridor light before their shift.
D wondered what other colors might look like on—
The femme behind him cleared her vocalizer.
"Sorry." D gathered two cubes. The dispensers had been fixed, then. Pax had been right, which D would not be mentioning.
Heading for the tables, he spotted Jazz waving him over.
"D!" Jazz's voice carried impressively across the chatter of the common hall. "Hey, mech. Come sit!" Prowl, Hound, and Moonracer were with him, nursing their own cubes.
Friends. A distraction from his traitorous processor.
That would be useful.
D walked over and sat down. He cracked open one of the two cubes with an easy, one-servo motion.
Jazz's visor lit up considerably. So did Hound's optics, and Moonracer's. Prowl paused mid-sip.
"So," Jazz said. "I take it you liked the red on Pax's dermas, huh?"
D choked on his energon, coughing violently.
Jazz patted his backplates, grin firmly in place. "Slow down there, mech."
"I always suspected something between you two, but this sure confirms it," Hound chuckled.
"What—" D coughed the last of it out. "Are you talking about?!"
"The mark on the right side of your helm," Moonracer giggled.
"Mark?" D blinked.
"Yeah, here." Moonracer pulled a mini reflector from her forearm compartment and angled it toward him.
He looked.
The reflector showed him his own helm — the dark plating, the familiar contours, and there, vivid and unmistakable against the grey, a red mark. A DERMA mark.
The shape of dermas pressed into D's helm in shimmering crimson, upper and lower clearly defined, the color bright and luminous under the hall lights, and it could only belong to one bot in the entire mine, because D didn't regularly hang out with too many bots, and out of the ones he did there was only one — one mech — who was wearing red on his dermas today, and… and…
Pax had crashed into him. Before the shift.
Right side. Bounced off his plating, and D had spun and caught him—
"So, what did you say to get him to leave something like that on you?" Hound grinned.
"Must've been somethin' real nice," Jazz smirked. "I'm surprised you don't have any red on your own derm—"
"He—" D's voice came out wrong. Too high. He corrected it. "He crashed into me. Running. In the corridor. His faceplate hit my helm. I didn't know the — the dermastick — leaves marks—"
"Oh, it DEFINITELY leaves marks," Moonracer giggled.
"What leaves marks?" Pax's voice rang out from behind him.
Primus. Pax always had the worst timing in the whole fragging universe.
"It's nothing—"
"You do." Jazz grinned and pointed at the red and blue mech, his visor gleaming. "You left a very special mark on your dear bestfriend's helm—"
Pax's optics snapped to D's helm, already looking for the dent.
"Are you talking about the drill bit I dropped earlier? Because, Dee — I promise, it was an accid—"
The rest of Pax's sentence died on his still-very-red dermas.
D wanted to strangle Jazz.
Pax's servos were on his helm in an instant — panicky, digits rubbing at the shiny crimson mark he'd left there without knowing.
"Slag — Dee, I'm so sorry — I didn't know! I— it must've been when I crashed into you — I swear on Primus I didn't mean to—!"
"It's fine, Pax," D replied, waving Pax's servos away from his helm.
"Wait, there's still—"
"It'll fade on its own." D took a sip of his cube.
"Are you sure? Because I think I made it worse—"
"Drink your cube, Pax. Or I will."
D nudged the cube he'd saved toward him.
"I— alright." Pax nodded, relenting, and sat down beside him. "Thanks for saving me one, Dee."
D hummed and took another swig from his own cube.
He could still feel the warmth on his helm where Pax had tried to rub the dermastick off.
He ignored it.
The table was quiet for a couple of clicks.
It was a bit awkward.
"So," Pax started, conversationally. "I convinced Wheeljack to look into mixing different paint samples."
Hound's optics lit back up. "Oh yeah? Is he going to try making his own derma stuff from scratch?"
"It's called dermastick, Hound," Prowl corrected.
With the number of times that word had been thrown around this rotation, D was really starting to get a helm ache.
"Well, that's the goal," Pax nodded, taking another sip. Some of the red from his dermas stayed behind on the rim of the cube.
"Wow. Okay. It really does leave marks on everything," Pax noted, a little nervously.
D did not look in his direction. He took another sip of his own cube.
It was basically empty at this point.
"You been goin' around kissin' any other bots faceplate-first today, Pax?" Jazz teased.
D froze.
Pax choked on his energon. It spattered across his faceplate and down his frame.
Prowl produced a polishing cloth from his forearm compartment and handed it over.
"Don't do that again," Prowl added, dryly.
D couldn't tell if that was directed solely at Pax, or if Jazz was included in the statement as well.
"Sorry… thanks, Prowl," Pax coughed. He wiped his intake, and the last of the glimmering red came away with the cloth. His faceplate stayed a faint blue. "Look, it was an accident, Jazz. I don't just—"
"I know, I know. I just like seein' your faceplate go blue," Jazz chuckled.
"You're the worst," Pax grumbled, downing the rest of his cube.
Things settled after that. The conversation carried on a while longer, until Hound noticed Moonracer's optics drooping and called it for the rotation. The rest of the table agreed, in various states of drowsiness.
The two of them made their way back to the habsuites.
"Hey. I really am sorry about your helm," Pax said, worrying his lower derma — back to its normal silver now.
"I told you, it's fine."
"There's still dermastick on you."
Not as much as before, D's processor unhelpfully supplied. Something in his chassis dipped. He ignored it. It was silly.
"I don't think smudging it with your servo again is going to help," D replied, dryly.
"I should've saved some of my energon to clean it. You saw how fast it came off with liquid, right?"
"Yeah," D nodded. That particular moment had also tugged at his spark. He was not going to examine why.
"Maybe I can go back and—"
D rolled his optics and nudged him forward, toward the habsuites. "Look. We can deal with it in the morning, okay? It's not a big deal, and I'm exhausted."
"Well… alright. It's your helm."
They walked a few more paces. Pax was being abnormally quiet.
It was kind of disconcerting.
D looked at the ceiling of the corridor. "So. The colors. What did Wheeljack say?"
"Ohoho." Pax's helm turned. "You interested?"
"Not really." Not in the way he knew Pax was insinuating, anyway.
"Then why are you asking?" Pax's grin was slag-eating.
"I'm starting to regret asking."
"Hey, I know interest on your faceplate when I see it, Dee—"
"What you're seeing is tiredness and premature stress lines from dealing with you on a rotational basis," D grumbled.
They reached their berths — opposite sides of the aisle, same as always. D stepped up into his and let his backplates settle against the frame.
"What color would you want, though?" Pax was leaning on the edge of his own berth instead of getting in it. "Yellow? Or maybe purple, like Megatronus? Or maybe blue—"
D's processor produced, unrequested, a picture of Pax with blue on his dermas.
He terminated it immediately. Before his vents could get involved.
"Oh?" Pax's optics narrowed, delighted. "Blue, Dee? Your faceplate's doing the thing again—"
"No. I'm not." D huffed. "I don't really want to wear that stuff. It's not exactly functional."
"The point of dermastick is to look good—"
"I'm fine with how I am." D glared.
Pax chuckled, servos up in surrender. "Okay, fair enough. It's not for everybot."
D closed his optics and settled in properly.
"I would never force you into it, Dee," Pax added.
"That's a first."
"Hey! I don't— okay, maybe I do, sometimes—"
"Nearly always."
"—but I wouldn't on something like this. I promise." Pax frowned, then shrugged, finally stepping up into his own berth. "Plus, it's kind of expensive anyway. And even if Wheeljack makes it, it'd have to go through a bunch of test tries first."
"Regular paint isn't safe to put anywhere near your intake, Pax."
"It technically wouldn't be regular paint—"
"Do you really want a repeat of last time? I'm sure Ratchet would be thrilled to see you again, with your tank clogged and purging—"
"I know. I'm not going to eat it." Pax grimaced at the memory. "Plus, Jacksie's making tiny models to—"
"He's what?" D's optics reopened. "Ugh. I don't even want to think about what that means."
Pax laughed, blue optics glowing across the aisle. "It's actually pretty cool. He's using scraps—"
"We came here to recharge, Pax."
"Maybe you did, but I—"
"You nearly tripped over every bench on the way here."
"Those benches were structurally in the wrong place, I'll have you know—"
"Pax."
"Alright, alright, I'll stop." Pax chuckled, and settled back. "Recharge well, Dee."
"Thanks. You too."
Pax smiled softly and closed his optics. It was the last thing D saw before closing his own.
The red derma mark, smudged into the plating of his helm, was still warm.
D blinked his optics open. Just a hair. The habsuite row was quieting down, and Pax was still in the berth across from him — already off in recharge, D could tell.
It only ever took Pax about two clicks to drop into it, and he always went with the same small, soft, peaceful look, his whole faceplate gone slack with it.
D had seen that sight hundreds of times. Thousands, maybe. It never got old. His own frame was already easing down toward recharge, just from looking.
It didn't matter what color Pax's dermas were.
That look — the soft one — was devastating in every configuration.