Archive of Our Own ^beta

It is quite distracting, Soundwave begrudgingly concedes.

There is nothing out of the ordinary about this meeting—Megatron orders, Starscream defies him, Megatron yells, Starscream yells louder, Shockwave presents his most recent discoveries, Megatron commends him and insults Starscream, Starscream insults him back, they actively ignore the room at large. Things are as they have always been.

Except for the way Starscream’s lips glisten whenever he moves.

Lip gloss, he had heard Thundercracker call it, showing a little cylindrical container to three extremely skeptical-looking Coneheads.  You apply it on your lips to make them shiny. It also smells really nice.

It seemed inoffensive, if entirely alien, which was why Soundwave started paying close attention to everything related to it. The most irrelevant of objects can be a dangerous weapon in the seekers’ possession and, truth be told, they confound him in a way few things can.

He has had millennia to mull this conclusion over in his head, and he believes they know. Not only that, they like it and actively strive for it to be so—prideful and vain, nothing makes seekers glow and their egos inflate quite like the knowledge that their secrets and costumes are beyond the reach of grounders. Whenever the flick of a wing is met with confusion, they exchange sly, private smiles, and whenever someone makes a comment about their (asinine, utterly asinine) hierarchies, they are met with scoffs and profound scowls. They are their own little group and dislike it whenever anyone tries to get into their business.

As Head of Communications and Intelligence, however, their business is Soundwave’s business, at least in as much as every single other Decepticon’s is. It is, simply put, Soundwave’s job to know.

It seems, however, that there is nothing to know here. The basics are clear enough: Swindle made one of his idiotic, strictly forbidden deals with the Autobots’ junior tactician, and that was how the Cybertronian sized human product found itself circulating among the ranks. He started his business by showing his merchandise to one or two potential buyers, no doubt seekers, and the word quickly spread. They all wear it and are constantly talking about it.

Soundwave doesn’t understand the appeal. Face paint hadn’t been uncommon before the war, but it had served very specific purposes and had followed very clear rules, only being worn during festivities and consisting of sets of lines and angles that represented different facets of Cybertronian society. In its oddity, there was rigidity, order; it was nothing like what the humans wear on their own faces, powders and liquids and a million other things for no discernible rhyme or reason. From what Soundwave has gathered, all the lip gloss does is enhance what is already there and add some softness.

He may be rethinking his conclusions, though. The truth is, Starscream is presenting the latest entry in his series of harebrained ideas, and instead of compiling a long-winded report on the ridiculousness of his scheme, or (much to the delight of his cassettes) taking a soundbite from his monologue and editing some absurd music over it, Soundwave is staring at his lips and not hearing a word of what is being said.

In his defense—and he needs one direly, a little voice helpfully supplies—, it really is a curious thing. Soundwave can’t understand what the consistency is, if it feels warm or cold, if it tastes like a chemical or like something organic, why they wear it. When Megatron starts tearing into his strategy, Starscream bites his lip in anger, and the lip gloss makes it look more supple and fuller. When the light hits, his lips shine almost as brightly as his finish. It is a very Starscream thing, in that it demands attention and forces you to give it.

No one else seems to be quite as distracted by it, though. If Megatron notices that half of his forces, including his Second, have decided to engage with human costumes, he does a splendid job of pretending not to see anything, and calls for the end of the meeting with the same ease he always does. As usual, he is the first to leave.

Soundwave is always the last. He has datapads and notes to organize, and he appreciates the quiet that envelops the conference room whenever mechs vacant the space. He has always worked best in silence, and there is something very familiar and comforting about solitude.

“Is that the new lip gloss, Starscream?” Shadow Striker asks. She isn’t wearing any and the question sounds interested, if slightly mocking. “It seems shinier than the other one.”

Soundwave knows the response is going to be an affirmative one even before any word makes it out of Starscream’s mouth, because his wings immediately start fluttering. It’s almost absurd how much he loves attention. “I got the very first tube that made it onto the Nemesis. The consistency is far better than the original one, just as I requested.”

There is the sound of datapads being picked up, and then pedes moving towards the door. Shadow Striker snorts. “I don’t get what it is about that thing that the lot of you likes so much, but whatever. Have fun, I guess.”

"You can’t get taste,” Starscream bites back, but Shadow Striker is already out of reach when he says it and his implied insult hangs in the air, miserably off-mark. He glowers and his optics finally fall on Soundwave, narrowing to suspicious slits. “Do you also not get it, Soundwave?”

Despite being directly addressed, Soundwave isn’t sure if he is supposed to answer. Starscream has this curious habit of saying Soundwave’s name in the most peculiar of ways; difficult to identify and even harder to explain, and it sounds like no other word that makes it out of his mouth. Soundwave’s telepathy proves useless, in this case, because Starscream knows how to shield and prying into his mind would be more trouble than the whole thing is worth.

Soundwave opts to not say anything, choosing instead to stare. It’s an extremely reliable trick; mechs feel unnerved and inevitably start blabbering. Predictably, Starscream huffs and scowls, making a rude gesture with his servo that is somewhere between being dismissive and downright insulting.

“Why did I ask, of course you don’t,” he says, leaning against the table. From his subspace, he retreats a little tube—the lip gloss. He’s unscrewing the top as he continues his tirade, needlessly vitriolic as usual, “An uncharismatic bore like you wouldn’t recognize a beautiful, elegant thing if it hit you over the helm and made you trip and fall.”

Soundwave ignores him. Instead, his optics are lured to the pretty curve of Starscream’s lips and the way they shimmer as the product is reapplied, a thin coating of whatever that sheer substance is. There is, he admits, some fascination in the way he is observing the action.

Many mechs care about the way they look—even Soundwave does, to an extent. He gets a wash every day, reapplies his paint whenever it starts chipping considerably, and is careful to stay well-maintained and clean. But dents, scratches, scars, those are a little different. He happens to share Megatron’s sentiment that warriors should, in fact, look like warriors, and that includes all the little marks and scratches obtained from their battles. A remnant of their gladiatorial days, no doubt, where looking as imposing as their reputations was vital to their survival in the pits.

The seekers don’t share such backward notions (their words) on self-care and personal appearance. A good warrior, to them, must look their best, as beautiful as they are powerful. A well-kept paintjob is a point of pride; polishing after every wash is a requirement, and the shinier they look, the better. Despite what Starscream may think, Soundwave does recognize beauty when he sees it—he is perfectly capable of admitting that the seekers are stunning. He just doesn’t much care for it.

He isn’t above being intrigued, though. Soundwave has a naturally curious mind, and the lip gloss is unlike anything he has ever seen. Call it intellectual curiosity, but he finds himself asking, “What does it feel like?”

The only sounds in the room come from their systems. Starscream tilts his helm, an optic ridge raised. “What?”

Soundwave seriously considers getting up and leaving, his interest be damned. But he merely nods his helm towards the little tube. “The lip gloss.”

They stare at each other for a moment, none of them speaking. Then, slowly, Starscream straightens and takes three deliberate steps towards Soundwave, elegantly draping himself on the chair next to him. He tilts his helm back, expression considering, tapping a little rhythm against the plating of his collar with the tube of lip gloss. When he shifts to better face Soundwave, the curves of his frame are emphasized by the new position, a picture distracting enough to make lesser mechs lose their train of thought. Soundwave is used to him, and more diligent than most; he keeps his optics trained on Starscream’s face without needing to remind himself. 

The rhythm stops, and Starscream holds the lip gloss forward.

“Want a taste?” He asks. From this close, Soundwave can feel a slight aroma coming from him, something sweet and fresh. The lip gloss glistens in slightly different colors—silvers and blues, all very light.

The tube is close to his face, and Soundwave makes a motion to grab it, but Starscream moves it out of reach with a coy flick of his wrist and by lifting his arm slightly. “Ah-ah-ah.”

His expression is light, somewhere between mocking and expectant. From this angle, his optics look impossibly big.

“From the source, Soundwave. Obviously.”

And, just to make sure he cannot be misinterpreted, Starscream taps his lips with a digit, twice.

Him and his games. Soundwave considers wrenching the little container out of his servo, anyway, but they would likely end up in an undignified scuffle in the middle of the conference room. Reeling his irritation in, he turns his attention back to the ruby red optics in his line of sight.

“The source is the tube containing the lip gloss,” Soundwave notes, much to Starscream’s immediate annoyance. Being pedantic is always a sure way to get on his nerves, a knowledge that Soundwave exploits whenever it best suits him. Besides, he is objectively correct, nitpicky or not—the source of the lip gloss is the tube, not Starscream’s lips.

“Same difference,” is the surprisingly even reply. The annoyance evaporates almost immediately, and in its stead appears an expression far too complicated for Soundwave to unveil. “So? I'm a busy mech, Soundwave. And you aren’t one for hesitation.”

Indeed, he is not. However, there is no hesitation in this case. Starscream just happens to think very highly of himself.

The moments that follow are heavy, the silence around them all-encompassing and almost oppressive. That expression on Starscream’s face is still there, mysterious and complicated, and Soundwave feels no closer to figuring it out. It bothers him, not knowing; but it bothers him even more to be the day’s entertainment because the Second in Command is bored. He tilts his helm forward and Starscream follows the gesture, his optics something close to hungry.

“The paint on your wing is chipped.”

Soundwave gets up and exists the room, leaving behind a spluttering and cursing, absolutely fuming Starscream. It almost makes the whole charade worth it.

That curiosity doesn’t leave him, is the thing.

Soundwave’s desire to know is a constant, because he is used to knowing more than most. His telepathy allows him to peek into places most cannot access, and it gives him insights and information regarding many situations that those around him simply aren’t aware of. Whenever something eludes him, Soundwave is always acutely aware of it, like that absence has its own physical form and presence. It’s impossible to ignore.

The weeks pass and new lip glosses come in. There are now enough varieties that some seekers have taken to always wearing the same lip gloss, clearly having found a favorite. Others, like Starscream, try a new one whenever it makes it onto the Nemesis. Thundercracker seems to prefer that second one, a sheer substance glistening with silvers and blues, as discreet as he is. The Coneheads appear indecisive, rotating the same four tubes and hoping one of them will make sense eventually, and the Rainmakers aren’t even trying to pick a favorite. Skywarp also seems happy to try new things every time, but Starscream is clearly growing impatient. Soundwave knows him—he wants the perfect lip gloss. Something that will fit him, and only him; the type of thing that makes others look and think Oh, it looks like it was made for him.

Again, prideful and vain. He is as predictable as the Earth’s rotation; give him the same as everyone else, and he will find a way to turn it into something uniquely his.

“Y’know boss, if you wanna try it, I can just get a tube from Swindle,” Rumble says while they’re fueling in the rec room, when he catches Soundwave staring at a table full of seekers again.

“No.” They seem to be growing even more fastidious regarding their appearances with each passing day. It was difficult to ignore them usually, but now their paintjobs seem even brighter, their polish shinier and richer, their wings more fetching. A fascinating display all around, and something that Soundwave suspects might be related to the lull in fighting they are experiencing.

Frenzy clears his vocalizer (a habit he’d picked up from the human soap operas he enjoyed so much, much to everyone’s chagrin), effectively turning Soundwave’s attention back to him. When he doesn’t say anything, Frenzy rubs the back of his helm and exchanges a look with Rumble. Next to Soundwave, Ravage stands suspiciously quiet.

“We can just steal one, if you don’t want anyone to know,” he offers. Rumble immediately nods, a little desperate in his agreement.

“Yeah yeah, y’know Swindle sucks at keeping his merchandise secure, boss! Frenzy and I can sneak in real easy, just say the word.”

“No.” For the life of him, Soundwave is incapable of understanding their insistence. He is hardly-ever interested in anything Swindle has to sell, and lip gloss certainly falls way outside of his box of preferences. The idea of applying an unknown substance to his lips, for some unknown reason, is bizarre to him; besides, he doesn’t like to look shiny. For someone who deals with intelligence and who, generally, works in the shadows, there isn’t a single reason why that would be useful.

Another look exchanged. It’s difficult to tell, but Soundwave is fairly certain that Ravage has just snorted.

What he can tell, however, is Rumble and Frenzy’s discomfort and embarrassment across the bond. He feels a spark of annoyance at the discovery; they are a cohort. He believes, from the years they have spent together, that they have learned to just speak when they have something on their minds.

“Rumble, Frenzy,” Soundwave says, making them sink into their seats. There is decidedly a note of amusement coming from Ravage. “Out with it.”

They exchange a look, again, but thankfully Rumble decides to speak before Soundwave’s seemingly infinite supply of patience threatens to run out.

“So, you’re, y’know. You just gonna keep staring at the seekers, then?” He shrugs and waves his arms, both gestures being far too nonchalant to be even remotely believable. The anxiety oozing from him also doesn’t help. “Just so we know, boss! We’ll stay with you, obviously.”

“Will we?” Frenzy asks in a whisper. Soundwave can’t see it, but he’s positive Rumble kicks him under the table.

“We will stay with you, whatever you want. Just, y’know. Let us know. So we can, uh. Yeah.”

It is known that Rumble isn’t the most eloquent of mechs, but this might be a record even for him. Soundwave is baffled.

“So they can do damage control, he means,” Ravage clarifies, stretching. “Not that it would do much. Your staring is setting mechs on edge.”

Instead of focusing on how absurd the notion of Rumble and Frenzy doing anything even remotely similar to damage control is, Soundwave mulls over Ravage’s words in his processor, considering. He knows he can come across as intense; the troops feel generally nervous whenever he is around, and his quiet observations leave others feeling apprehensive. But he is not practicing his usual duty, he is merely curious. Why would anyone—

Doing a quick sweep of the room finds Starscream, still sitting next to his trinemates, Slipstream, and two of the Rainmakers, shooting daggers at him. The scowl on his face is impressive, something the likes of which he usually reserves only for Megatron. Soundwave stares at him for a moment longer, nods subtly, and turns back to his own table, staring at Frenzy’s now empty energon cube contemplatively.

Yes, he understands now. It’s unbecoming of him to have forgotten, but, well. He can be forgiven the occasional indulgence. Despite his fearsome reputation, his curiosity does get the best of him, sometimes.

“Apologies,” Soundwave says, making Rumble and Frenzy look at him with wide optics. “I am not interested in the lip gloss’s… functions, as it is. I am merely intrigued by its popularity. Taking anything from Swindle is unnecessary.”

He very resolutely doesn’t look back towards the seeker’s table, even when he can feel some of them standing up to leave. Getting caught staring by Starscream again would be disastrous, and unlike what the Second in Command might think, Soundwave doesn’t have the habit of being aggravating on a whim. Toying with the seekers’ tendency for territorialism and possessiveness is not something he ever plans on doing unless the situation calls for it.

In front of him, the twins openly sag in relief. Frenzy even grins.

“Well, you coulda just said so, boss! What’re you curious about? Stuff like that is really popular among the humans, many of ‘em wear it all the time.”

“Yeah, it’s kinda weird,” Rumble adds. “It’s real different from the stuff we had back home, right? But some humans use lip gloss every day, and even other stuff. Makeup, they call it.”

Ravage jumps into one of the empty chairs and sits on his hind legs, yawning. “They wear makeup in festivities and ceremonies, but it’s usually a little different. Whatever they wear on a day-to-day basis seems to serve little purpose other than aesthetic ones.”

The explanation clarifies little, in Soundwave’s opinion, but at least it seems to confirm that the lip gloss is truly an aesthetic choice. Out of the corner of his optic, he notes that all seekers have vacated the room, no doubt due to their upcoming aerial training, and so he takes the opportunity to leave with his cassettes as well. Rumble and Frenzy’s schedule marks inventory duty with Barricade, something none of them is looking forward to, and they walk away from Soundwave with the expression of two mechs taking the path to their execution. Ravage lingers for longer, following Soundwave along the Nemesis’s hallways and stopping right as they reach his office.

“Someone needs to keep an optic on Swindle,” he says as the door’s code is being input. “The success of his latest endeavors is sure to leave him with an inflated ego. It’s best we know what to expect.”

Sound reasoning, as Ravage is known to have. Swindle’s gambits whenever he believes he is on a winning streak are notorious for their disastrous consequences, for himself but especially for the cause. Soundwave nods and Ravage bids him farewell with a flick of his tail, but not before sending him a look far too complicated for it to mean anything good.

Soundwave is already in his office when he hears, words ringing clear across their bond, Indulge your curiosity with the restraint you owe it.

Behind his mask and visor, Soundwave frowns. Cryptic messages are not Ravage’s primary mode of communication—when he wants to say something, he merely says it. Subtlety is useless between their little unit, but especially between the two of them.

I always do, is Soundwave’s response. He was not forged yesterday.

There is an echo of something akin to distant laughter, not mocking but knowing, and then nothing. Soundwave squashes down his irritation over feeling like he is missing something blatantly obvious to everyone else and gets to work.

Despite their lack of skirmishes with the Autobots, war still entails a vast number of logistical issues. Shockwave’s solution for their fuel problem was as ingenious as expected, but sooner or later they will have to raid another refinery, and all their problems will start anew. Contacting Cybertron remains one of their top priorities, but they seem no closer to forming a decent plan to make that happen. Truth be told, most of the troops don’t even seem to want to form a plan, which is a problem in and of itself.

Motivation always suffers a sharp decline whenever the fighting dwindles. A war as long-lasting as theirs has had a few moments of stagnation, where neither side made a move and things seemed to hang in the balance, and each time the fighting restarted the blow hit harder than the last. Soundwave knows there is some nervousness about who will attack first, and he also knows that many Decepticons don’t want it to be them. It is simply the nature of things.

Perhaps that explains the seekers’ sudden odd behavior. A desperate attempt at prolonging normalcy? It’s a guess as good as any.

His pondering is abruptly cut short by a quick succession of pings at his door. A brief look at his visitors’ log tells him it’s Starscream, and turning to his surveillance monitors shows him pacing up and down the hallway in front of Soundwave’s office. After a few seconds of that, he stops right in front of the door and scowls, pinging for entrance five times in a row. Then another one, clearly just to be annoying, which is something that Starscream is very good at.

Pettily, Soundwave considers not letting him in. They have no ongoing tasks together, and Starscream’s habit to go pester other fellow officers just to whine and complain is well known. There is much to do—Soundwave has no time to entertain him and his frivolous complaints.

It could be something important, however, and that possibility is enough for Soundwave to sigh and allow his office door to open.

Starscream comes in like a hurricane, stomping into the room like he might break the first thing that appears in front of him. Save for an old chair and the desk filled with datapads, datasticks, and small monitors on one corner, that thing is Soundwave.

“Liked the view, did you?” Starscream asks, voice venomous.

“Clarify,” Soundwave requests. Allowing Starscream the upper hand in an argument in his own office would be utter stupidity, even if he is perfectly aware of what the question is about. Forcing mechs to spell things out is a simple trick that nevertheless tips the scales considerably.

As expected, Starscream bristles. His wings rattle and he takes another step forward, slapping both servos violently against the desk and leaning down to stand face to face with Soundwave.

“You know what, you overgrown boombox!” The desk shakes a little under his weight. “Stop ogling my seekers!”

Soundwave has to actively abort the immediate retort that wanted to stumble out of his mouth—he was not ogling anyone—and recenter for a few seconds, thinking hard about the best course of action. Regardless of his intentions, a vengeful Starscream is not someone he wants to have as an enemy. Carefully, he stares the seeker in front of him in the optic and raises his arms slightly, palms spread.

“I meant no offense,” he says, careful to keep Starscream’s claws in his line of sight. He can easily slice Soundwave’s cables without needing to reach for a vibroblade. “I was not ogling. Merely staring.”

“Oh, because that’s better!” Starscream screeches. Soundwave opts to ignore him and continues, lowering his arms slowly.

“I find the… lip gloss intriguing. That is the end of my interest in your seekers.”

The datapad Soundwave had been previously working on lights up, but he ignores it. Starscream shifts his attention towards it for a short second before immediately refocusing on Soundwave, optics narrowed and dark faceplates scrunched up in thought. A cursory read on his mind finds nothing—Starscream’s processor is securely shielded, as always.

Eventually, he snorts and allows himself to fall back into the visitors’ chair. The piece of furniture isn’t made for fliers, and Starscream goes through a few short seconds of awkward rearrangement before finally settling on a position that doesn’t hurt his wings. He has one leg over the other and rests his elbow on the arm of the chair, using his closed fist to prop his helm up. The look he levels Soundwave with is one of his dangerous ones, full of intelligence and possibilities.

“You have a fascinating way of showing your curiosity,” Starscream observes, in a way that makes clear that when he says fascinating, he means weird. Privately, Soundwave concedes his point; it wasn’t his finest moment.

When he fails to offer any sort of reply or acknowledgment, Starscream continues, optics turned to the claws of his left hand, “I can’t believe you’re still fixated on that, though. What’s so intriguing about it? It’s lip gloss. It smells nice, tastes nice, and looks pretty. Those meat bags are capable of the occasional good idea, it turns out. Does that answer your questions?”

Somewhat. The smell Soundwave was aware of, and he had also accurately guessed that it had something to do aesthetic enhancements, but the little tidbit about taste was a novelty.

“What does it taste like?”

Starscream shifts his attention to him without moving an inch. Standing as he is, helm a little bowed and peering up at Soundwave, he looks almost coy.

“Depends. The one I’m wearing tastes like caramel.”

That tells Soundwave nothing. The fact that it is a human flavor surprises him a little, though. He keeps staring at Starscream, waiting for him to develop on his previous answer, but instead all he gets is an intrigued helmtilt and a smirk.

“You do want a taste,” Starscream guesses.

This again. Soundwave uses the fact that no one can see his face to his full advantage and rolls his optics, hard. “No, I want to know what it tastes like.”

In an imitation of their last conversation, Starscream waves a dismissive servo and expertly shoves Soundwave’s denial aside. He leans forward, elbows on the desk, that same complicated and undecipherable expression on his face.

“I could say warm, rich, and sweet, but how helpful would that be, really?”

Not very, damn him. Soundwave isn’t familiar with earthly flavors—all taste related adjectives will only remind him of Cybertronian ingredients, nothing else.

Starscream’s smirk widens. He shrugs, and this time he is definitely being coy.

“My offer still stands, Soundwave.”

The thing about Starscream’s games is that they are overly complex and needlessly abstract. Finding ones footing in them is always difficult, and to make matters worse, it is often impossible to guess why the game is happening in the first place. There is a wide variety of possible motives, each more convoluted than the last, and Soundwave has no time (or predisposition) to figure it out right now. As such, he must play to the best of his abilities.

One thing he knows for sure: the only way out of Starscream’s bluffs is through. Calling him out does nothing, because he will boisterously deny any and all accusations, so making him face his own cowardice is a far better move. Soundwave retracts his mask and waits.

The shock was expected. Starscream reels back slightly, blinking, clearly caught off guard. His optics rove over the expanse of faceplates that he can see, looking at Soundwave’s jawline, then tracing the scar that goes from his cheek, down the left side of his lips and into his chin. It’s an old injury, obtained at the same time as the one on his neck, both remnants of his days as a gladiator. They didn’t have the proper medical supplies at the time, and if they were to heal, their nanites had to take care of everything.

That scar seems to catch Starscream’s attention, because he stares at it for a long time. Has he ever seen Soundwave’s face? His full face no, Soundwave is positive, but he might have seen him refueling a few times when the war was just starting. Or maybe not—the scar already existed at the time, and something tells him that Starscream wouldn’t have forgotten it if he had seen it.

They stay unmoving for so long that Soundwave is starting to feel the urge to smirk, victorious. However, before he has the chance to cover his face again and to tell Starscream to get out of his office, a blue servo comes to rest against his cheek and a thumb grazes the sensitive metal of his scar, startling him. Only years of honing his skills keep him from jumping.

Before he has the chance to say anything, Starscream reaches forward and kisses him.

It’s a surprisingly chaste kiss, in the sense that Soundwave didn’t expect Starscream to be capable of those. Just the press of lips over each other, something almost innocent. Soundwave can feel—sticky and weirdly dense—and taste—rich, warm, and a little too sweet, unlike anything he had ever tasted before—the lip gloss, and something in his mind settles with the knowledge.

They’re parting almost as soon as the kiss starts, both with equal expressions of vague bewilderment. Soundwave takes a hand to his lips even as Starscream is still staring at the scar, getting some of the lip gloss on his digits and feeling for the consistency with his thumb and index.

“So?” Starscream asks, finally managing to tear his optics away from the blasted scar. Soundwave takes the opportunity to cover his face once more.

“It is a sensory nightmare,” he replies. The consistency is truly horrid; the stickiness he can feel on his lips and digits is driving him to distraction, even if the taste was good.

He looks back at Starscream’s lips, still glistening and curled in a scowl. Very good, even. “Ugh, of course you wouldn’t get it!”

Obviously he’d take offense to that. Soundwave fails to see what, exactly, there is to get, but he thinks that there might be no point in asking.

“Did that satiate your curiosity?” Starscream asks after a while, straightening himself and dusting some non-existent particles off his plating.

“Yes.”

“At least we have that.” He eyes Soundwave for a moment longer, frowning when he sees him staring at some point behind him. Starscream looks from Soundwave to his wing and then back again, scowling once more.

“My paint isn’t chipping!”

It really isn’t, but it’s funny to make him think so. Soundwave turns back to his datapads and Starscream finally leaves, cursing and whining the whole time. Behind his mask, Soundwave smiles.

And then he retracts the mask again and goes looking for some solvent, wanting to rid himself of the horrendous stickiness and greasiness on his plating. What an absolutely detestable thing.

 As it turns out, Megatron hadn’t realized that half of his troops were painting their lips on a regular basis.

“They’re burning through enough resources to power a small planet!” he bellows in anger, breaking the datapad that contained Shockwave’s report on the seekers’ most recent hobby. The scientist picked up the ruined object without so much as a complaint, proceeding as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“The existence of the lip glosses is insignificant to our efforts,” Shockwave says.

“Insignificant!” Megatron points at one of the monitors so aggressively it threatens to break under his digit for a moment. “My Air Force look like clowns! I have some of my elite soldiers parading around like cheap copies of fleshlings!”

 Exaggerations often serve their purpose, but they fall flat when reality stares them right in the optic. The monitors do not show clowns, or cheap copies of fleshlings; the only thing that can be seen was Thundercracker and Nova Storm, engrossed in conversation and sporting similar shades of light pink on their lips. They both look fine—beautiful, even. Thundercracker in particular seems more confident lately, speaking out more often and standing out during aerial practice.

“Aesthetical concerns do not influence the war effort,” Shockwave continues. He has been trying to shift the conversation towards the ongoing combiners program and the energy requirements of a single gestalt, but Megatron seems to consider the lip glosses a bigger issue. “At the rate we are going, our energon reserves will be depleted in approximately a groon. I suggest a raid. I have a list of refineries that I believe would best suit our purposes.”

Megatron is not listening. The glower on his face as he stares out the Nemesis’ observation window into the bottomless Earth Ocean tells Soundwave as much. “Of course we need more energon. It’s that blasted lip-thingy’s fault!”

“Uh,” Shadow Strikers says. “I think it’s the combiners’ fault, sir.”

Her comment is dutifully ignored. It might be for the best.

Keeping each individual member of a combiner team online and fully functional requires the exact same amount of fuel as every other Cybertronian, but in order for them to combine the energy output is far superior. Their frames need a high amount of energon during those moments, which was why, during the last vorn of the war on Cybertron, no Combiner made it onto the battlefield from either side.

Getting Devastator, or even Bruticus, back in working order would give them a sorely needed advantage, but Soundwave fears that the plan is too ambitious for their current situation. For one, they don’t have a steady supply of energy, and even if water can be easily turned into coolant, the process to turn oil into energon is far longer; for another, they are stuck in the middle of the sea, and every excursion to the surface eats at their already limited resources. A smaller scope might be beneficial.

“Soundwave,” Megatron says. “I want you to get to the bottom of this. By next week I don’t want to see a single seeker wearing that human contraption.”

Someone sighs. The datapad Soundwave was carrying in his subspace precisely for this moment is brought forward, showing highlighted strings of data.

“As you wish, Megatron. But overall efficiency might suffer.”

Choosing his words carefully always pays off, as Shockwave’s immediate interest proves. Megatron, as well, pauses and eyes Soundwave with confusion in his optics, not having expected such an argument. Saying morale wouldn’t have warranted the same prompt attention.

“It’s lip gloss,” Megatron says, slowly. “How does that affect anything other than those idiot’s reflections?”

Soundwave takes a step forward and hands him the datapad, which Megatron takes as though it is a bomb that has yet to be diffused. There is nothing scary about the datapad’s contents. Odd, perhaps, but this faction is used to odd occurrences.

As he peruses through the data, Megatron starts frowning.

“What am I looking at?”

“The troops are working well.” A summarized version will suffice. “Better than they ever have here on Earth.”

Megatron’s frown deepens. “Why?!”

Causation is a little more difficult to pinpoint, but given the dates… “The numbers started to rise a week and a half after the lip glosses were introduced to the Nemesis.”

It sounds like an absurd notion, which is why Soundwave is already expecting Megatron’s derisive scoff even before it happens. It’s difficult to argue with data, though, especially when observation confirms it—efficiency is at an all-time high because, simply put, mechs want to impress the seekers.

It started as small things, like Flamewar covering Slipstream’s shift on monitor duty. There was nothing too abnormal about that, since Slipstream’s distaste for that task is as well-known as Flamewar’s preference for it (she can doodle as much as she wants during monitor duty). Besides, they get along. It seemed like a simple favor between friendly acquaintances, and even if such things aren’t particularly common within the Decepticon ranks, everyone has considerably mellowed out since arriving on Earth.

The problem—and Soundwave uses the word lightly, because there’s very little about the whole thing that is problematic instead of merely supremely useful—became noticeable when Barricade offered to carry inventory boxes for Skywarp and, when he got injured, Hook worked diligently at his repairs under Acid Storm’s watchful gaze.

It is, admittedly, a little embarrassing, but the numbers don’t lie: it has been helpful. And Soundwave is unwilling to toss aside anything that proves helpful to the cause.

His datapad is now on Shockwave’s servos, who is examining the data with the kind of undivided attention he devotes to anything that isn’t emotional reactions or conversation.

“Fascinating. Efficiency has risen to numbers we have not seen since the taking of Tagan Heights.” Shadow Striker has joined him and is analyzing the datapad’s contents over his shoulder, much to Shockwave’s displeasure. “Soundwave’s findings support my hypothesis, then: the lip gloss is inconsequential, or even, as seems to be the case, beneficial. Our efforts should lie elsewhere, Megatron. I must reiterate the need to revise any future plans regarding fuel sources.”

Very rarely does Megatron find himself on the losing side of an argument, but there is also no way that he can continue to argue against the lip gloss without sounding like a stubborn idiot. As such, he merely grunts and curses under his breath before effectively changing the subject to more pressing matters. Soundwave considers the whole thing a resounding success.

Getting called into a meeting because of lip gloss would delay anyone’s work, but Soundwave deals with sensitive intel on top of his already vast influence over everything that relates to Decepticon communication channels, so he always has more workload than the average mech. Walking briskly towards the elevator is merely a symptom of being behind on his tasks.

“Did you manage to plead your case in favor of the lip gloss?” Ravage asks as soon as the doors close in front of them, keeping anyone else from overhearing their conversation.

Soundwave is dutifully looking ahead when he answers, “There is no pleading needed when the reasoning is sound.”

“Some might argue that there is nothing sound about defending the seekers’ right to paint their faces, Soundwave.”

“There is when it benefits the cause.” Soundwave eyes him then. “You have seen it as well as I have.”

In a show unlike himself, Ravage grunts. “I’ve seen our troops acting like idiots, yes. Hardly anything out of the ordinary, or that anyone would consider beneficial.”

This is an old argument. The reasons for Ravage’s sudden interest in acting contrarian elude him, and not even peeking into their bond clues Soundwave in on what his thought process might be. It’s bothersome, not to mention slightly unnerving, and he will admit to growing tired of these discussions.

“It’s beneath you to ignore the obvious,” Soundwave ends up saying, and is at least rewarded with Ravage lowering his tail in chastisement. He does know that he is being moderately unreasonable, at least.

They make the rest of the ride in silence. It is only when the elevator gets to the surface that Ravage speaks again, voice apologetic.

“I think there are far more important things for us to spend our energy on. That’s all.”

Soundwave can concede his point in this, at least. The meeting was useless; minutes upon minutes spent discussing some aesthetic details instead of the many problems plaguing their faction and their plans to defeat the Autobots, an inordinate amount of time focusing on the seekers instead of on their enemies on the other side of this land. It’s a waste of time and an absurdity on top of that, which is why Soundwave wanted to close the subject as soon as possible.

Besides, the traitorous part of Soundwave’s processor is fairly certain of the real motive behind the meeting, but, well. That is neither here nor there.

 They soon reach their destination. Stepping out into the Earth’s surface is always a shock. For those moments while the elevator’s metal envelops them—while the only thing their senses can feel are smells, textures, and sights that are as familiar as the rotation of their sparks—their minds trick them into thinking they are still on Cybertron. The trick remains the same, no matter how many times Soundwave walks this same path, and the disappointment when the doors finally open and they see an alien landscape is just as harrowing as the first time it had happened. There is nothing familiar about Earth, and that only serves to make their resentment grow.

It's a warm day, with this system’s star high in the sky and no clouds in sight. A seeker is passing overhead at high speed, flying over the ocean and disappearing on the horizon, and five more quickly follow. In front of them, a few others practice quick flight maneuvers—dodging, spinning, transforming into bipedal mode to take aim and then back into alt before reaching the ground, and a dozen other moves that Soundwave cannot accurately identify, much less name.  Both him and Ravage stop before an accentuated slope and look up, towards the jets.

During one of his sweeps over the thing humans refer to as internet, Soundwave came across a video of an Earth animal—a horse—running across the wet sand of a beach. The sea appeared behind the animal, a blue blur as he ran and ran and ran, and something about that footage had struck a familiar chord inside Soundwave, like a song he kept hearing but couldn’t place. Reading the comments showed him thousands of people all saying similar things, talking about how there was something beautiful and freeing about seeing someone, or something, doing what they were so clearly meant to do.

He remembers a cycle back on Cybertron, sometime after the fall of Praxus. The Autobots were hunting down any flier sporting a Decepticon insignia, and the seekers were forced to lay low for something close to two groons. He had never seen anything quite like the mixture of restlessness and anguish that followed them for the duration of that forced landing, and the write ups for insubordination and unprofessional conduct kept piling up. No corrective measures, as Megatron liked to call them, seemed to work; if anything, they only aggravated the problem.

It wasn’t particularly surprising when Starscream simply disappeared one cycle. Well, “disappeared”—Soundwave was well-aware of where he was. He allowed him a few joor, though, and when he felt the time was right, took the only transport available to the middle of the Badlands.

The neutrals who ran it weren’t sympathetic to either side (referred to Prime as The Usurper and to Megatron as The Tormentor, an epithet that he has always been partial to) and worshipped to the altar of money, something that Soundwave only marginally respected more than religious fanatics. Still, their love for shanix proved useful, and in less than three joor he had made it to Starscream’s little hideout spot.

He was flying. High in the sky, hiding between the dense clouds, he twisted and turned in the air as though it was his only purpose in life. Something became clear in that moment, even if Soundwave is incapable of verbalizing it to this day.

When Starscream touched the ground, seeing Soundwave seemed to startle him. Whatever fear he felt was immediately covered by the acerbity that seemed to cling to him like a second layer of armor, and he snarled, “Came to take me back, did you?”

Despite the words, he followed Soundwave when he turned towards the transport without making a fuss, only cussing quietly to himself as they made their way.

They were halfway through the road back to Polyhex when Soundwave asked, incapable of keeping his curiosity in, “Why do you need to fly?”

Even then he understood it was a need. Starscream didn’t seem to appreciate that show of perception, though; he scowled at Soundwave, optics alight with righteous fury and wings trembling behind him. There was something else than just anger to his disposition then, but it was impossible to tell what.

“Why do the stars shine, why does Cybertron spin? Why do you read minds?” he spat. Scoffing, he crossed his arms and effectively ignored Soundwave for the remainder of their journey.

Those same questions echo in Soundwave’s mind now as he looks at him, showcasing some overly complicated move to Dirge and Nova Storm. Starscream still looks as at home in the air as he did then, and Soundwave is once again reminded of a horse running on a beach, of freedom and purpose and desires that belong only to the spark.

Unsurprisingly, Starscream is the first to notice their surprise visitors. He is too far away for Soundwave to be see his face clearly, but even from such a distance his immediate frown is perceptible. Leaving the other seekers with a few quick words (and a yell in Ramjet’s general direction), he takes off towards Soundwave and Ravage at high speed.

“Maybe he’s going to thank you about the lip gloss,” Ravage says.

Soundwave doesn’t dignify blatantly incendiary comments with a response out of principle.

“Longing glances across the rec room aren’t enough for you?” Starscream asks immediately upon landing, not even bothering to acknowledge either of them by name. “You’re gonna ogle us during practice, too?”

There is, without the shadow of a doubt, heavy amusement coming from Ravage’s side of the bond. Ignoring vaguely (or obviously) insulting remarks is not something that Soundwave is ever planning on growing accustomed to doing, but this day seems to be testing him. Instead of reminding him that there was no ogling involved, Soundwave opts to get straight to the point.

“I need to speak to Thundercracker.”

“Wait for practice to end.”

“I need to speak to him now.”

Starscream exvents in exasperation and glares at Soundwave. The lip gloss he is wearing today has red undertones, and the brilliant sun highlights them to a captivating degree. It goes well with his paint. “Did you hit your helm on the way here? We are in the middle of aerial practice, you can’t just barge in and start making demands.”

Soundwave doesn’t reply, which aggravates Starscream to a satisfying degree.

“Don’t make me pull rank on you in front of your pipsqueak,” he threatens.

“It is a security concern.” Soundwave tilts his helm. “Either summon him, or I will.”

The chain of command within the Decepticon ranks is far too fickle a thing for Starscream to put such stock in it, but his power plays must hinge on something. Soundwave knows that the seeker likes to remind him that he is, nominally, his superior, and Soundwave allows it because the whole conversation is irrelevant to him. Third in Command is only ever relevant to Starscream and his ridiculous scuffles and comparisons; that title doesn’t even begin to cover to scope of Soundwave’s influence within their faction, not when he is the mech responsible for Intelligence, Communications and Security.

This being a security matter also ensures that Starscream has no say in it, something that he is perfectly aware of and is annoyed by. With a huff and a disgusted sounding “ugh”, he turns his back on Soundwave and taps on his comm. Thundercracker joins them soon after, vague confusion coloring his face and mind.

“You called for me?” He asks, looking at Soundwave. His optics travel to Starscream for a moment, possibly trying to gauge his reaction, but all Thundercracker sees is a sullen expression and mopping posture, so he quickly turns back to Soundwave.

“Yes.” The datafile he sends Thundercracker is encrypted, but simple enough to be exchanged through comms. “Regarding your datawork from yesterday.”

That makes the seeker frown as he looks over the file. “Anything wrong with it? I used the new formatting in all the files.”

“The formatting is acceptable.” Better than that, even. Thundercracker’s paperwork is exemplary. “You mentioned a glitch in the network while accessing backlog.”

Starscream makes a ridiculous show out of pretending he is not paying attention to what’s being said. Examining his claws fifteen feet away from where the conversation is taking place isn’t as innocuous as he would like.

“Oh, that! It was pretty weird, so I thought I’d mention it. I couldn’t open some of the documents there. They were all intact, ‘cause I checked, but they just wouldn’t open.”

An odd occurrence, indeed. Soundwave came across the same exact bug but was incapable of figuring out its source. It is setting him on edge.

Thundercracker proves quite useful, however—he provides a timestamp for when these problems started happening and is able to accurately identify all the documents that were affected. Soundwave quickly compiles a small report with all this new information and sends it to Ravage, who takes off as soon as he collects what they needed.

“Do you think someone accessed our network?” Thundercracker asks.

“Perhaps.” There are too many possibilities, currently; none that Soundwave likes. “You should go back to practice.”

There is a muttered finally from somewhere to Soundwave’s right, which they both dutifully ignore. Thundercracker nods and licks his lips, wincing. Soundwave tilts his helm.

“What?”

“Nothing, I’m going.” He rubs his forearm against his lips, leaving a greasy mark on the blue plating. “Peppermint is so gross, Star, I don’t know how you can wear this.”

Peppermint. Soundwave has heard of it, but he has no idea what it might be. Automatically, he looks towards Starscream, who is far too busy bickering with Thundercracker about his apparent abhorrent taste to notice.

Practice ends soon after. Soundwave made the decision to stay out in the sun for a little longer (he would never admit it out loud, but he liked the way the Earth’s star warmed his plating, especially his servos), but he only managed around eight minutes of alone time before the terrain around him filled with seekers moving towards the elevator. Most of them are complaining about this and that, some are mentioning some after shift plans, and they all seem pleased to finally be off work. Soundwave lets them pass, not wanting to get caught in an enclosed space with so many fliers.

“Not ogling, you say?”

It takes everything out of Soundwave not to audibly sigh. “You seem to have a wide definition of ogling.”

“You seem to hold remarkably boring hobbies,” is the immediate retort. Starscream stops by his side, looking, as Soundwave is, towards the seekers. “What are you doing, then? Mind reading?”

“I can think of kinder methods of self-flagellation.”

Starscream’s snort is a bit of a surprise. From what Soundwave gathers, to himself as well.

They stay in silence for a moment until Starscream asks, “Do you think the Autobots are behind whatever mess is happening in our network?”

“Unclear, but likely” Soundwave says. He sees no point in not being honest about this subject. “They have been silent for a while.”

“And how can such a nice thing be such a terrible sign.” Ramjet, Thrust and Dirge, the three remaining seekers, enter the elevator. Soundwave starts walking towards it as the doors close and is surprised to see Starscream following him.

“I thought you would stay here longer,” he admits, the words coming out without much thought behind them. They seem to make Starscream pause.

“Why?”

By lieu of a verbal answer, Soundwave tilts his helm upwards and allows the star’s light to hit his visor. The immediate warmth he feels on his faceplates is pleasant.

Starscream hums. It sounds, to Soundwave’s audials, a little amused. “I can go a few hours without stretching my wings, you know. Besides, I just spent a while flying.”

He appears lighter, which might relate precisely to that. Soundwave has long ago learned that Starscream is much more agreeable if he has taken to the skies recently, and if he exploits that little personality quirk whenever it is most convenient to him, well, then that is no one’s business but his own. He will admit, though, that it’s nice to see Starscream like this.

The elevator is already back when they finally reach it. Despite not being the one closest to it, Starscream is the first to enter, quick to shove Soundwave aside when the time came. He isn’t nearly as annoyed by that as he should be.

The doors are already closed when Soundwave asks, “What does peppermint taste like?”

Starscream eyes him. It’s one of his keen looks, the ones that have a tendency to leave mechs feeling slightly nervous. Soundwave is not, but he still feels his tanks fluttering when the full force of that stare falls upon him.

The elevator starts moving. Starscream replies, something odd in his tone, “Fresh and pungent. A bit spicy.”

“Thundercracker doesn’t like it.”

“Thundercracker has terrible taste.” Turning so his hip rests against the back wall of the elevator, Starscream tilts his helm. “Would you like it?”

If it’s spicy? Unlikely. “Unclear.”

“I suppose it is,” Starscream muses.

Then, he presses the emergency button, and the elevator stops with a resounding screech, leaving them stuck inside. Soundwave immediately turns to him, a question on his lips, but two claws tapping on his mask make him stop in his tracks.

“Open.” When Soundwave just stays rooted in place, Starscream rolls his optics, unimpressed. “Please, Soundwave. Let’s not act like this wasn’t what you were actually asking.”

The urge to not retract his mask just to prove him wrong is strong, but Soundwave ends up doing as he says anyway. The truth is, this was what he was asking.

Once again, Starscream seems transfixed by the scar on Soundwave’s face. He is faster in cupping his cheek this time, tracing the metal with his thumb and stopping right over his lips.

“Thunderclaw, wasn’t it?” He asks. Soundwave is, admittedly, a little shocked that he would know.

“Yes. I thought gladiatorial combat was undignified.”

“It had its moments.” His optics are boring into Soundwave’s visor, impossibly big and bright. Behind him, his wings tremble once, twice.

Incapable of decoding that look and unwilling to think further about it, afraid of what he might find, Soundwave leans forward and kisses him.

There’s nothing chaste about this one.

Soundwave thinks he’ll never be able to tell who deepened it, but he knows he is somewhat to blame. His servo is immediately drawn to the back of Starscream’s helm, who welcomes the contact by trailing his servo to the back of Soundwave’s neck and then slithering his arm around it. It presses them flush together, cockpit against tape deck, and Starscream grazes his glossa carefully against the sensitive metal of Soundwave’s scar, making him shiver and part his lips in invitation.

This, for some reason, seems to delight Starscream. He tightens the hold of his arm and trails his digits over Soundwave’s side, the touch playful and sweet in its exploration. Soundwave seizes the opportunity to take Starscream’s bottom lip between his own and sucks, giving it a little bite for good measure. Starscream gasps; his servo presses properly against Soundwave’s frame, squeezing.

The taste is… not good, truthfully. It tingles and is generally unpleasant, not to mention denser than the caramel one, but the longer they kiss, the more it fades, and Soundwave finds that there’s something very pleasant about that. When it exists only as an aftertaste, it’s not so bad.

They eventually part, frames warm and lips oddly sensitive. Starscream remains close, his nose touching Soundwave’s as he asks, “Better than last time?”

Soundwave thinks there might be a double entendre in there somewhere but opts not to think about it for his own sake. “No. I do not enjoy peppermint.”

“Ugh,” Starscream says, but doesn’t move away. As a matter of fact, they both lean in for a short peck, which Soundwave is hesitant to describe as sweet but really can’t be anything else. “Boring, but what else could I expect from you?”

Soundwave presses the button, and the elevator starts working again (he will need to delete the security footage as soon as he is able). They take a step back then and he closes his mask once more, satisfied that his face doesn’t feel nearly as sticky this time.

At Soundwave’s little nod, Starscream waves him a servo dismissively.

“Don’t mention it.”

When the doors open, he is the first to leave. He looks back and tilts his helm slightly.

“Soundwave.”

“Starscream.”

They each go their separate ways.

We’re creatures of habit, Soundwave heard someone say once, in some human channel about science and biology. We fall very easily back into old patterns and have deeply ingrained routines that are hard to break. As a matter of fact, most people are happier when they have a routine they can stick to.

Soundwave is a creature of habit, too. He always takes his energon in the exact same way (plain, slightly warmed), sticks to his established schedule, has his rations at the same time every day and has used the same type of paint since before the war began. His plans follow the same line of cleverness, pragmatism, and finesse that they always have, and his position within the ranks is secured and unlikely to ever change. Exactly how he likes things.

Introducing new things to his routine is unusual, because Soundwave has a very clear idea of what he wants, and when he finds something he likes, he has a tendency to stick to it. New habits form when mechs feel they need them, and Soundwave hardly ever feels like he needs anything. He has everything he could ever require.

It is odd, then, that kissing Starscream seems to have become some sort of habit.

He knows why, of course—the lip gloss flavors are never-ending, and the consistency remains as hideous as Soundwave remembers it to be, which means that he refuses to wear anything like that on his face. There’s still that curiosity, though, as constant as some sort of virus, and Starscream has presented himself as the perfect antidote. Or, perhaps more accurately, a remarkable painkiller. Nothing can kill that curiosity, it seems, but Starscream relieves its symptoms to an alarming degree.

The third time it happens, they are halfway through a meeting and Soundwave is incapable of looking away from the glittery, brownish shade on Starscream’s lips. It makes them look impossibly soft and like they would feel divine against Soundwave’s glossa.

Starscream, more perceptive than anyone has any right to be, takes note of his distraction with the tilt of a helm and a smirk that is little more than a mirage. He allows Megatron to finish his rant with great impassivity and is openly delighted when Soundwave cups his cheek after everyone leaves the room.

“Can’t get enough, can you,” he drawls, mocking, but he still leans forward, and his nose still brushes against Soundwave’s in something that can only be a bit of playfulness.

The display is enough to stop Soundwave in his tracks for less than a second, unsure if Starscream had ever shown a hint of anything other than contempt and distaste for him. The thought goes as quickly as it came, deeply irrelevant in the great scheme of things.

“Chocolate?” Soundwave asks. He overheard Swindle saying it while trying to pitch the product to an increasingly unimpressed Barricade, and although the conversation proved quite useless (Swindle is a below average source of information when he is failing to rob mechs blind), it did tell him that chocolate is a popular human sweet.

“Hmhm.” The claws trailing from the back of his helm to the space between his shoulder plates are making his spine tingle pleasantly—not that Soundwave would say that out loud. “Sweet and velvety. Reminds me of sweetened energon from Vos.”

“I only tried it once. I remember it being quite popular.”

“I used to have it every creation cycle,” Starscream admits. There’s a vulnerability that creeps from him whenever he mentions Vos, like it is trying to seep out of his seams and cover him in it. Starscream always manages to avoid any leaks before they become a substantial mess. “Come get a taste, then. It might be better than you remember.”

It is, but Soundwave is under the distinct impression that he isn’t exactly talking about the taste. It’s nice—far better than peppermint, in any case—, but the texture is even better. Smooth and light, with none of that stickiness that he had come to associate to the lip glosses. Kissing Starscream while wearing this one is a far more pleasant endeavor, and it lasts accordingly longer.

After the chocolate comes watermelon. It has green accents and smells almost as good as it tastes, even if the consistency is back to being disgusting. Soundwave forgives it easily, especially when Starscream licks over his scar and the action lets him feel the flavor of the lip gloss directly on his glossa. Sucking on his bottom lip has Starscream making a little noise from the back of his throat. 

“This one is nice,” Soundwave says. The room around them—a training room that barely sees any use as it is, since their faction insists on breaking into brawls in the middle of the halls—is silent, enveloping them and protecting them from the outside world with its soundproofed walls.

“It’s not my color,” Starscream replies, turning around. And that is that.

The next kiss happens while they are both out on patrol, a rarity in and of itself, and while the cassettes are engaged in other matters and, consequently, not inside Soundwave’s chest. They have been walking for approximately thirty minutes when Starscream, unprompted, shoves Soundwave against the trunk of a particularly sturdy-looking tree and bites his mask.

“Off, off, off.” He’s leaving glossy marks all over the metal, and Soundwave isn’t nearly as upset by the prospect of having to clean it up later as he should be. He does as Starscream says, ignoring the sudden reversal of their roles, and their lips quickly smash together.

No sooner are they kissing than Soundwave is reeling back, wrinkling his nose.

“What is that?” He asks. Slight changes in inflation are noticeable without his mask—there is no voicecoder without it, after all—, and Starscream seems to catch onto the vague distaste in his worn-out voice. As expected, he is less than pleased.

“Coffee,” he replies, expectant expression shifting into one of annoyance. “Are you serious?”

Was he supposed to like it? Soundwave is unsure of why, exactly, Starscream seems so upset about him not enjoying this new flavor, but he is not about to say he liked something when he very clearly hates it.

“It is bitter. Unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant!” Starscream screeches. “This is one of the best flavors, you ingrate!”

He rummages through his subspace while cursing Soundwave out, saying this and that about idiots who don’t know what is and isn’t a good thing. A rag materializes, and Starscream uses it to clean his lips. When he moves it away from his face, there is no longer any trace of the lip gloss.

“See if this is bitter, then,” he says, and kisses Soundwave again.

It is not bitter, then, and it is better; so much better, in fact, that Soundwave places a servo on Starscream’s hip and deepens the kiss, ignoring the little voice in his helm that is yelling something about going outside of his routine and the glaring lack of alibis for his intellectual curiosity.

“Better like this,” Soundwave murmurs when they part, and Starscream’s wings wiggle. He seems, for some unknown reason, extremely pleased about the whole thing.

 The times that follow are unremarkable. Starscream appears with different shades of lip gloss, and he sometimes waits for Soundwave to ask, other times, he takes the initiative himself; the point is, they continue kissing. The whole thing is very clinical, from Soundwave’s perspective, but his cassettes don’t seem to agree.

“We’re happy you’re socializing, boss, really,” Rumble says suddenly one night, when they are halfway through the newest episode of one of Frenzy’s most beloved soap operas. The two leads are close to revealing their feelings for each other when he continues, “But, uh, maybe a different kind? Of socializing?”

“Or a different someone,” Ravage adds pointedly. “This is more about the someone.”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s good that you’re getting laid—”

Soundwave’s plating bristles. On the screen, a heavy make-out session is taking place. “No one is getting laid.”

“Then what’s with all the kissing?” Frenzy asks.

“With Starscream, specifically? That part’s important, boss. It’s Screamer.”

There is nothing new about this conversation, except in how they seem a little more insistent in getting answers this time. Truthfully, Soundwave doesn’t know what else to tell them—he has already said the same thing time and time again.

“I want to know what the lip glosses taste like.”

“You could just get a few and wear them yourself,” Ravage points out.

“I do not—”

“Like the consistency, yes, we know. Do they change consistency while on Starscream’s lips? Taste better, perhaps?”

Yes, Soundwave almost says, but stops himself right before the word can tumble out of his mouth. Somehow, he doesn’t think it would be a welcome response.

“He offered. It is practical,” he says simply.

They don’t seem convinced. Soundwave opts to ignore the whole thing for his own sake.

It isn’t until the middle of one of Soundwave’s monitor shifts, with the bridge empty save for the two of them, with Starscream pressed against the console and his wings rattling excitedly against the machine as Soundwave ravages his mouth kisses him, that a realization occurs.

“You like the fruit ones,” Starscream pants, his optics overbright and a slight blue sheen on his dark faceplates.

Soundwave supposes he does, but Starscream joins their lips again and keeps him from answering. The cherry flavor is practically gone by this point, but the lips moving against his are soft and inviting, and the frame under his servos seems to be at home there. The kiss might be even nicer now.

It turns out, however, that Starscream’s conclusion has a reason of being. He starts wearing exclusively fruit-flavored lip glosses, and the results are far better than Soundwave could have ever imagined. Coconut is good, sweet and rich; lemon is a bust, but Soundwave still kisses Starscream a second time just to be sure. Grapes is fine (it tastes like nothing, although it does smell very nice), and mango sees them locked in a storage room way past the start of their respective shifts. Starscream didn’t like the yellow hue of the lipstick when the lights hit it, and Soundwave thought it would be kind to clean it for him.

Things remain as they are for a while. Soundwave feels, for lack of a better word, light—as though the chains making up the knowledge he carries with him at all times have lost some of their unmovable weight, like his sins and deceptions and chances of self-preservation suddenly seem little. Present, always present and never far behind him, but he needs to squint to see them, now, and when they stand right next to Starscream in his field of vision, they are obfuscated by the brightness of his red paint. When they kiss, they leave the room.

The parade of lip glosses continues, and life is the closest it has felt to normal since they left Cybertron and took to the stars. Their ships runs smoothly; their energon supplies remain somewhat stable; their troops are well-fed and well-rested; there is, more often than not, a warm frame pressed against Soundwave’s. All is well.

Hope has always felt to Soundwave like a drug only fools are addicted to. There is nothing appealing about the thought to anyone who knows there is no point in it; to those who have felt the flames of chance burning their plating and their very sparks, hope tastes like ashes.

Within the Autobot ranks, hope is like a plague. They run on very little other than Prowl’s careful planning and the wild idea that the universe can be anything other than what it is, and Soundwave has seen what happens when they are faced with the fallacy of that ideal. Their broken minds, the utter betrayal. He wonders why Megatron is considered a liar when so many more have died seeing Optimus Prime for the false prophet that he is.

Soundwave is above it. He doesn’t feel deceived or betrayed. But the feeling inside his chest when the full onslaught of Blaster’s attack hit is one he refuses to experience ever again.

He’s unsure of how long it’s been. There has been a battle, 100%, because he briefly recalls the sound of Megatron barking orders and Starscream organizing the seekers, but from there on everything is a bit of a blur. Their network (his network, the result of hours upon hours of labor and careful dedication) in his shambles, infected with the modified version of a virus crafted by Soundwave’s own servos and processor, and the guilt and shame are unbearable. That Blaster is using his own creation against him—the sheer thought that he was able to reach into its code and change it to fit his goals!—is the type of insult that only a shot straight to the spark is capable of imitating. Soundwave is not being dramatic; it isn’t often that the cause and his pride intercept, but the fact that both are taking damage at the same time, by the same hand (and of all fucking hands—), is making a few of his emotional subroutines crash.

In his chest, the cassettes come and go without his input. They have their own orders and roles, and they do not require Soundwave’s constant attention to do as they are told. He is vaguely aware of Ravage pressing against his leg, of either Rumble or Frenzy touching his hands on the keyboard, but he pays them no mind. He needs to stop the Autobot assault before it perpetually ruins all of their efforts. The fact that his audials don’t stop ringing or that his hud is displaying numbers and percentages in increasingly more aggressive shades of red and blinks is irrelevant.

Mechs come and go into the command center, either ignoring him or saying something but being ignored in turn, and Soundwave doesn’t stop working. He doesn’t know how many hours he has spent in front of these same monitors, in the same exact position, and he doesn’t care. Not until he sees this through.

A door hisses open. Why this is something that registers, Soundwave isn’t sure, but he has just managed to salvage some documents deemed unsalvageable a while ago and he cannot bear to be distracted now.

There are pedefalls behind him, the feel of air moving and things slotting into place, but Soundwave is mindless of it. The ringing in his audial is constant—why doesn’t it stop—, and the glitching errors on his visual feed keep piling up, a never-ending stream of things going wrong and proof upon proof of his failure.

Something presses against his back. Soundwave frowns, both because of the contact and because he can’t see the numbers on the terminal properly, but before he has the chance to try and focus his optics again, he is being painfully pulled away from the monitors.

He turns faster than he has in millennia, fist ready to make contact with whichever idiotic fool thought they could get a hit on him just because he was absorbed in his work, but there are claws against his neck in an instant and his fist ends up colliding with nothing. His visor is still registering only a blur of red when his processor, regardless of (the lack of) optical input, helpfully supplies a name for the intruder.

“The great Soundwave, cables slashed after being caught unaware inside the Decepticon’s ship.” Starscream tuts. “What a story that would be.”

His claws retract. Soundwave still can’t see him properly, for some unknown reason, but his silhouette is as familiar as the back of his own hand. 

“Why did you—” Soundwave starts, but he is shushed by the flick of a hand.

“Remove that,” Starscream says, tapping on his visor. When he sees him floundering for a bit, his voice hardens, and Soundwave is sure his gaze contorts into a frown. “Manually, Soundwave, not into your helm!”

There is something about Starscream’s tone that bears no room for argument, and although Soundwave would usually relish in the opportunity of ruining just a little bit of his day, he finds that he has no inkling to do so today. His servos move almost against his own will and undo the latches keeping the visor in place, tossing it onto the terminal he was just jacked into. The world becomes clear immediately.

“Refuel,” Starscream orders, shoving the energon cube into his hands. “You need to get some fuel in your systems before you fall over and die—which, by the way, would be considerably worse than whatever the frag Blaster is doing—”

The cube cracks. The shards nick the inside of Soundwave’s hands, but he ignores the little slashes of pain in favor of trying to keep in check the all-consuming rage that suddenly courses through him.

Starscream cycles his optics and then hums. “Very well, no mentioning his name. Thank Primus I had the foresight to bring another cube. Drink.”

As a general rule, Soundwave has a strong distaste for being ordered around, but his processor grabs onto Starscream’s words like a lifeline now, content to simply do as he is told and not have to extend energy to thinking about what to do next. He folds back his mask and drinks the energon given to him; the liquid nearly makes him cough and splutter at the first drag, his throat components dry from disuse and stress, but he manages to finish it under Starscream’s watchful gaze. The numbers being displayed on his hud aren’t good by a wide margin, but they are looking significantly better.

“Good,” Starscream says when he’s done, almost absentmindedly. He’s looking over Soundwave’s frame like he is expecting to find something truly terrible in no time. “How are your coolant levels?”

Terrible for a normal day, alright considering that they are under an emergency. “Acceptable. Our network—”

“Is fine and perfectly capable of holding its own while you stabilize your systems. Coolant levels, give me a number.”

Soundwave scowls. He must make quite the picture, because Starscream starts and looks at him with wide optics, unafraid but definitely surprised. “Irrelevant to our situation. We have no time for this while the virus is still eating at our files.”

He turns to get back to work, completely ignoring of how idiotic it is to turn his back on Starscream, but a hand on his forearm quickly turns him back around.

“It’s eating at dummy data, Soundwave.” Starscream taps on the screen behind Soundwave, probably to emphasize his point. “That you created precisely with the intention of buying us time. So, sit your aft down and gulp down some coolant before I have to knock you out and do it myself!”

It’s with sudden clarity that Soundwave realizes he means it. Wordlessly, he moves away from his monitors and terminals and allows his frame to rest against the furthest wall, sliding down until he can sit on a few boxes holding inventory items that Soundwave has yet to properly catalogue and put away. A new container materializes in front of his face, and he drinks it without a second thought. Starscream wouldn’t poison him—that certainty is enough to shake the parts of his mind that are still working properly, but by virtue of the days (it has been days since all of this started, close to five) spent holed up in the command center, they are few and far between. Not nearly enough to form coherent thoughts, at any rate.

The coolant is quickly ingested. Most of the urgent warnings displayed on Soundwave’s hud disappear as soon as he does, and he is left feeling this spark-deep exhaustion, the kind that you can only outrun for so long before it finally catches up and latches itself onto your plating. He does need to rest, almost desperately, but he cannot do so until this is deal with.

Starscream is eyeing him with the type of intense focus that usually leaves mechs feeling nervous. Looking at him now, without his cracked visor (and how, exactly, did it crack?) and cloudy processor, Soundwave can see the marks of fresh repairs, places where something slashed his plating and left his paint a ruin. A particularly nasty looking dent on his wing has Soundwave swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, a mixture of anger and something else.

“Good to see you back with the living,” Starscream snarks.

“How long ago was that?” Soundwave asks. The lack of visor and mask allows Starscream to follow the path of his optics until his wing.

“A few hours after the onslaught on our network. A desperate attempt at distracting us enough to steal relevant intel.” He snorts. “It caught us unaware, but nothing too difficult to deal with. Annoying as only pests know how to be, though.”

Soundwave nods. His voicebox clicks four times before he manages to rasp out, “You were injured.”

It is a question, but also not really, because the answer is blatant and staring him right in the optic. Starscream huffs.

“Scratched. Nothing worth worrying your pretty little helm over.”

There’s something in his optics that tells Soundwave to try and dig up whatever he is hiding under his words, whatever truths Starscream is unwilling to let out into the light. Soundwave finds that he is incapable of figuring that out now, but he also does not want Starscream to leave. He has nothing to say, but does not want to be left alone. His hand rests on Starscream’s forearm, making him arch an optic ridge. Despite his curiosity, he says nothing.

Soundwave pulls him. Starscream’s thighs clink against the inside of his own, and his red optics bore holes into Soundwave’s. His expression seems almost hungry.

“Is there something you need, Soundwave?”

Instead of answering, Soundwave cups his face with both of his hands. Starscream’s optics widen impossibly.

“No lip gloss, I’m afraid.”

He doesn’t care. Soundwave pulls him in and kisses him, slow but hard, a little desperate.

The lack of lip gloss is irrelevant for a variety of reasons that Soundwave is beginning to uncover, bust mostly because Starscream tastes impossibly sweet even without it. His lips move seamlessly against Soundwave’s, and when their glossas intertwine, it is difficult to tell who makes a noise. Maybe both of them. Maybe it is Soundwave when Starscream lays a hand over his tapedeck and presses it against the smooth glass.

The command deck is silent save for the whirring of their cooling fans and the wet sounds of their lips meeting time and time again. Soundwave feels like his plating might melt right off his frame when pressing his hand against Starscream’s cockpit and abdominal vents leaves him panting hotly against his mouth, his dark faceplates flushed and beautiful lips glistening.

They kiss again. At some point, Starscream places his knee next to Soundwave’s thigh and hip on top of the boxes and allows their frames to press together, something unbelievably sensual about the way his every curve and smooth line slides against Soundwave. His wings bob up and down behind him, and his claws trace the plating of Soundwave’s collar like he is considering sinking them there and never leaving. There’s something oddly appealing about that thought.

Soundwave is drawing little circles over Starscream’s cockpit with his thumb when his hand is suddenly seized and made to cover a very specific path. Starscream’s intentions are clear, which is why Soundwave rasps, in between wet kisses, “The network.”

For a few seconds, he is unsure if his words were heard. Starscream continues kissing him, unbothered as though he could do it forever, but his hand lets go of Soundwave’s an instead trails over his buttons.

“Right, duty calls, or whatever,” he murmurs, clearly annoyed. Soundwave doesn’t correct him, but he does press a little against the touch. It makes his partner smile.

“But you know what, Soundwave.”  His lips move against Soundwave’s as he speaks, a tease unlike anything else on this planet or the entire universe. “After all of this, I’m thinking that there’s something that I would really like to taste, too.”

And, just to ensure that his words cannot be misinterpreted, he trails his hand lower until his claws trace against Soundwave’s warm panel.

The clear request is enough to leave every single one of his sensors alight. Still, there is work to be done.

“After,” Soundwave agrees, and is rewarded by a kiss and a playful bite on his jaw.

Starscream rises and takes a few steps back, straightening himself. His lips are swollen and his cheeks flushed, and there is no way anyone who sees him won’t know what he was just up to. Still, he seems unbothered by it; the only thing he is paying attention to is Soundwave. He holds a finger up and waves it in his general direction.

“I’ll hold you to it,” Starscream promises. Soundwave dearly hopes that he does.

When he leaves, the command center doesn’t feel nearly as oppressive as it previously did, and his work on the monitor doesn’t seem as daunting. Soundwave might even have a few ideas on how to finally get that blasted virus out of their network and into the Autobots’ as a little revenge plan. Anyway, he needs to get to work. There is much to be done.

Both now, and after.

If asked, Soundwave would never give out any information regarding his romantic life. In the privacy of his processor and hab, however, he is willing to admit to being a bit of a cuddler.

It might not come as much of a surprise to anyone who knows him, he reasons. His cassettes would certainly not find it odd; it is a clear extension of the way he cares, always doting over those who live in his spark and free with physical touch whenever he feels comfortable to do so. The closure and intimacy of it are both things that he values, things that he likes.

“Keep that up on my wings and you better be ready for a round two,” comes Starscream’s muffled voice. In the dark, Soundwave allows a small, private smile to grace his lips.

His intention was to keep his touch innocent, but his partner is insatiable and insistent on having his way at all times. It is an extremely Starscream thing, all things considered—he has been having his way all this time, after all. As a matter of fact, Soundwave is a little embarrassed that he is only noticing it now.

Lip gloss. He is, unfortunately, not immune to being an idiot on occasion.

There was lip gloss involved again when Starscream invited him to his hab—a deep red with specks of gold (strawberry red, Soundwave later learned. It tasted as good as it looked), as luxurious as the frame it adorned.The mess in their network had been avoided, the Autobots had been dealt with accordingly, and Soundwave was, generally, more aware of the world around him than he had been before. Starscream’s presence could only mean one thing, as could the devious smirk on his lips.

He looked then like a mech who had just unraveled a great treasure, or perhaps like someone who had just reached a prize they had been long looking for. Either way, that look made Soundwave feel warm; warmer still because he knew Starscream’s expression was mirrored in Soundwave’s own, all that hunger and anticipation made from the same material. He had been a fool. Unbelievably blind in not having seen this from that very first moment, when the first offer had been made.

The truth is, no matter how bold Starscream may be, and how used to knowing everything Soundwave is, some things can only be found when one is looking for them. In Starscream’s defense, he tried very hard to make it obvious.

Overcome by this unfamiliar wave of fondness, Soundwave pulls Starscream from where he had his face pressed against his neck and kisses him, his touch soft and sweet. Starscream hums against his mouth, pleased.

“A little slow on the uptake, are you?” He asks, mocking tone contrasting with the way his lips brush against Soundwave’s own as he speaks.

Soundwave is a fast learner, smarter than most and perceptive in a way that borders on unnerving. However, even he is not above some random bouts of myopic conclusions.

“In this one instance,” he concedes after Starscream kisses him again. He is easily convinced, it seems. “You make it difficult to see things clearly.”

“Flatterer.” Starscream’s wings flutter behind him, betraying his good mood. “Not that it makes up for making me wait for so long. Lip gloss, Soundwave, seriously.”

He was curious about those, and he will not be made to feel like a fool for that. His opinion on those contraptions remains the same it always was—he wants none of them on his face, but is very happy to taste them on Starscream’s lips and to see how the right ones match with his plating.

“They are very intriguing,” Soundwave says, just to be annoying. Starscream snorts.

“Insufferable idiot,” is his immediate reply, and Soundwave elects not to say anything lest he start an argument. That human-made Spiderman image comes to mind, though.