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Carefully, Breakdown snaked his arms around Bee's middle and pulled him close. Closer still, if he could.
Closer, if only his own unscathed plating would give a little and allow it.
Obviously, they couldn't. Their thick armor rarely ever allowed for anything more than light touches here or there. If he pushed their forms to the limit, Breakdown could loosen his transformation seams and swallow Bumblebee whole—make room for the impossible.
He's sure that Bee would get a kick out of that. Find it romantic and ridiculous all in one—a sort of intimacy only their kind could do. That only Breakdown would come up with.
Instead, he locked his digits together from where they sat against Bee's rigid spinal strut. Optics shuttering with a sigh, Breakdown leaned close to his partner in all but official registry.
The energon on Breakdown's teeth didn't belong to him. He let his tongue roam across the indented structure regardless, sucking on the curdling liquid as if it were a boon and not a pale imitation of proper fuel.
Magenta painted Bee's pressed close lips. Breakdown stared hard at the rotting energon before he captured those rough lips in a kiss. Softer than any he had delivered against them before, even as he wiped the slate clean of bloodshed. Pulling back, he admired his work and resisted the urge to peck away at the remains of their relationship for a second time.
Everything had gone wrong in such little time. What was that acronym the humans had? FUBAR? Breakdown choked on a laugh. Yeah, he'd call what happened moments before a situation Fragged Up Beyond All Recognition. The Autobot who had fallen to his knees, poleyn dislodged from their rigid placement, and with a gaping hole in his visor where a facial sculpt used to sit would agree with him.
The arc of his shot had been a wild, unruly thing—retaliation for the one the Autogrunt fired his way first. Breakdown hadn't been aiming for his helm, or so he told himself. But undeniably his shot had met its mark because there was no other explanation for the slackened, grey frame that sat stiff with smoke pillowing out of the cavity left in his face.
Despite it all, Bumblebee still had the gall to smile down at him.
Puffs of air tickled against the sharp dividing lines of Bumblebee's cheeks as Breakdown tried and failed to switch off his overworked fans. With a grunt, he shifted beneath Bee. The vocalization came out as a harsh, guttural thing originating from somewhere deep in his cabling. If he didn't stop it prematurely, it would have morphed into a slow, loathsome hiss.
A pressure built against the back of his optics. The weight of Bumblebee transformed into a crushing weight against his chest plates. By moving beneath him slightly, Bee's helm came forward and nuzzled the underside of Breakdown's chin. Jutting the silver guard directly against his temple, Breakdown mourned that he could not cry out and kill that other Autobot all over again.
Bee nosed his neck cabling. Could he still smell the oil and expired polish he used that morning? Or was it buried under the scent of death that marred the field they took residence in? Those lips that he stole affection from earlier returned a kiss to the junction of his armor and delicate internal wiring. Throbbing at the contact, his energon lines pulsed in time with his despairing spark.
Breakdown couldn't muster the strength to shove Bee off of him. Couldn't string his words together to wisecrack about how he should lay off of the energon goodies. He could barely wrap his buzzing processor around the idea of ditching the dead weight when this had been the closest they've gotten in centuries.
Time was about the only thing Bumblebee considered worth stealing, but even then if Prime called he came running. Leaving Breakdown in the dust with nothing better to do than to aimlessly drive off until the Decepticons required his assistance. A fleeting touch would grace his starving, wolfish frame every now and then but Breakdown wanted more. Always more, never less. His Bee was a little tease like that.
Now though? If Breakdown let go of Bee, they'd never have another stolen moment ever again. He knew it as securely as he knew that the Autobot he shot would never get up again to shoot another in kind.
It paled in comparison to the arrogance that governed Bumblebee on a daily basis. Sue him if Breakdown decided to hold the bot hostage for another cycle or two.
"Not getting away from me that easy," he whispered against Bee's audial horns, arms tightening further. Bee's pauldrons shrugged, emotionless.
By this point, all of the energon remaining in Bumblebee's frame had seeped out and coated his underside with a fresh layer of paint. All the heat and passion he had left to give had soaked into Breakdown's plating, sure as the Earthen day was young. The sun that set on the horizon allowed Bee to borrow its golden hues, but the lifeless grey metal failed to match the brilliance he once conducted himself with.
Selfish bastard.
Why'd he have to go and do a stupid thing like jumping in front of the shot meant for Breakdown? Especially when he had the fight handled. Or did Bumblebee think him weak and in need of protection? A useless, gestaltless combiner without any use but to act as cannon fodder for a leader that ditched the cause he nurtured.
Did he not care about the fact that by getting in the way, he'd be leaving Breakdown behind for good?
Maybe he wanted Breakdown to rust in guilt for the rest of his run cycle. Left to stew over all the words left unsaid, sentiments he could never act upon, and a smile that conveyed absolutely nothing. Bumblebee should have known him well enough to understand that his deactivation wasn't some simple thing to sweep away.
Breakdown would obsess over his withered spark puttering out like a starving ember to the point of ruin.