Gay Autobots And Decepticons Holding Hands

Main blog, mostly transformers! I yell about she-ra at just-this-once-- stay

[choomchoom]

New fic! Drift/Rodimus, G. https://archiveofourown.org/works/31574408

Written for the @driftrodzine, which has leftover sales happening now over at http://driftrodzine.bigcartel.com.

Drift Rod Zine

A Transformers Fanzine centered around Drift and Rodimus per their appeareances and story in both More than Meets the Eye and Lost Light.

[sunderedstar]

the triumph of time round-up post, let’s gooo

if you want:

an extended TAAO AU, diverging from canon before the annual/finale

a steady mix of MTMTE elements, diverging from canon before the MTMTE/Lost Light break

More Titans Than You Can Shake A Stick At

Onyx Prime ≠ Shockwave

Unicron+Luna-1 BFFs 4 life

give Starscream emotional support rounds 3 through 4

Vigilem lives and this time it’s personal

Windblade running the planet via multiple acts of grand theft Titan

the Quintesson Galactic Council

Guest Star Waspinator

gratuitous Sappho and Swinburne poetry quotes masquerading as section breaks

the Infinite as people as opposed to cannon fodder

Sari “Scorponok’s daughter” Sumdac

Megatronus as a highly competent general 

mnemosurgery and its consequences

language, memory, miscommunication, and puns

Solus Prime/Arcee backstory rights

a general revamp of the Thirteen Primes and revised events for the Combiner Wars incident

Shockwave living his best life o)

“why is every Cybertronian scientist here except me fueled by raw, unadulterated chaos energy?” - a question Wheeljack has yet to answer

Starjack Windscream and Chromblade, because sometimes that’s just life

featuring yet another take on Cybertronian lore and the internal mechanisms behind Cybertron, sparks, and the Creation Matrix

Unicron: voring Cybertron for the greater good since 1986

“Next time, you invite Killmaster.”

endgame pink Rodimus

I provide these goods.

series links

worldbuilding, complete series from the top - includes alt Rung origins, Metroplex backstory fic, etc

main fics:

the ways of the stars undone - Starscream and all his Unicron problems

wind that shakes the seas and stars - Windvoice and all her Prime problems

and the wheel of the world roll under them - Wheeljack and all his Quintesson problems

let me fix your functionist universe and your primes IDW:

mine eyes blind as glass - Fortress Maximus and Rung in the Functionist Universe

leave my lips charred - Arcee, Thirteen Primes backstory overhaul

coda fic:

taught the sun ways to travel - Waspinator

drank so much sunlight - Chromia and Windblade, written for Femslash February

who’s a heretic now? - Being Pharma Is Suffering

like summer with sweet hours - Wheeljack and Starscream 

[simoneashley]

I aim to please.

[decepticon-propaganda]

Prowl: How are you doing?

Jazz: Hmm, pass.

[soaringsearingphoenix]

The worst part of human adulthood is being your own zookeeper

[soaringsearingphoenix]

Like... i have to make sure my meals are nutritionally balanced... i have to make sure that the space i occupy is big enough, and interesting enough, and provide enrichment to make up for the lack of novelty... i have to make sure i get exercise... i'm not qualified for this

[incarnate-clay]

Why would you abandon this in the tags? 

[biwenqing]

for the 5 times meme! wei wuxian, losing things

i looked at this prompt and thought “oh i could go so angsty with this” and then tried to find as much fluff potential as possible 😂 thank you so, so much for sending this in, i adored writing it! i added a plus one time he finds something!

give me a character, and a situation, and I’ll write you 5 ficlets on 5 times that situation occurred

#1) Lotus Pods “See, this is how you take the seeds out.” Jiang Cheng sat on the bank of the river and Wei Wuxian crouched at his side. Wei Wuxian wasn’t quite sure what to think of his new brother’s often surprising temper, but he had decided that he very much liked having a brother anyway. “Now you try.”

Wei Wuxian looked down at the lotus pod in his own hands. He carefully tried to pluck out a seed as Jiang Cheng had shown him, but it slipped to fall on the ground.

“It’s okay, you can have some of mine,” Jiang Cheng said, holding out a seed.

Wei Wuxian cupped his hand and Jiang Cheng carefully put the seed in it. He ate it with a smile. It was still odd (and wonderful!) to be able to eat food even when he wasn’t hungry. “Thanks!”

“Hmph,” Jiang Cheng said, which meant ‘you’re very welcome’ Wei Wuxian was pretty sure. “Go pick more pods, I’ll get the seeds and we can bring them to shijie.”

“Okay!” He scrambled up, being careful not to knock over the basket they brought. Taking off his shoes and rolling up his pants, he splashed into the water. He began picking pods, but dropped them after just a moment as he called, “I see a frog!”

“Really? Where?” Jiang Cheng left the shore and carefully waded his way.

“Shh, right in front of me, behind some leaves,” Wei Wuxian whispered. “Should I catch it?”

“Bet you can’t,” Jiang Cheng challenged.

Glancing over his shoulder he saw the other boy was smiling. Grinning back, Wei Wuxian called, “I bet I can catch more frogs than you can!” before diving into the lotuses, the pods he’d already picked floating forgotten (and later lost) in the water.

#2) A Drawing

Wei Wuxian dug around his spare clothes, tossing them to the side.

“Aren’t you supposed to be packing?” Nie Huaisang asked, appearing to lean against the doorway.

“He is,” Jiang Cheng, the traitor, said from his side of the room.

“I will, I will, I just need to find something first!” Wei Wuxian said, looking around.

“What’re you looking for?” Nie Huaisang moved closer, ignoring the way Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes.

“It’s nothing really!” Wei Wuxian said but not loud enough to cover Jiang Cheng.

“A picture for ‘Lan Zhan’.” The name was said in Jiang Cheng’s rude (in Wei Wuxian’s opinion) imitation of Wei Wuxian’s voice. He didn’t sound like that!

Nie Huaisang gave a little laugh. “Oh really? And why would an esteemed Jade of Lan want that?”

“No reason,” Wei Wuxian said quickly. It was a drawing of some of the rabbits from the cave. That way Lan Wangji could have a reminder of them and of the promises the two of them made together. Wei Wuxian remembered the way Lan Wangji smiled at the lantern art.

“Of course.” Nie Huaisang was covering a smile with their fan. “Did it fall behind the bed?”

Wei Wuxian stopped digging through his clothes and tugged the bed a little way from the wall. Sure enough, the paper had slipped behind. He pulled it out triumphantly, before carefully holding it so neither Nie Huaisang nor Jiang Cheng could see what was on it. They wouldn’t understand.

“You’re welcome,” Nie Huaisang said, and then looked from one brother to the other. “Any other way I can be of help?”

“No, you’ve done enough damage,” Jiang Cheng grumbled. “Though I guess now he will pack.”

“I need to give this to Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian hurried out of the room.

Nie Huaisang’s laughter and Jiang Cheng’s cursing could be heard from behind him as Wei Wuxian navigated the Cloud Recesses one more time. He hoped Lan Wangji would smile again.

#3) Chenqing “You lost your spiritual tool,” Wen Qing asked flatly.

“I wouldn’t say lost it...” Wei Wuxian tried to persuade. He was washing a-Yuan’s clothes at the moment and Wen Qing had appeared to drop her own and Granny’s on the pile for him to clean as well. “I just don’t have it right now.”

“Can’t you feel it?” Wen Qing asked.

Wei Wuxian didn’t really like talking about his connection to Chenqing (and it would only make her worry), so he joked instead. “I think the blood pool ate it!”

“The blood pool didn’t eat it.” She settled on a rock near him.

Wei Wuxian was glad to see her taking even a little bit of a break. Wen Qing had been using so much of her energy healing all the Wens. None of them had been in good shape. “Maybe Uncle planted it?” he offered next

“No.” She hadn’t laughed, but the tension in her face lessened.

“It would grow and make cursed fruit,” Wei Wuxian chatted on, turning to focus on some dirt that was packed into the knees of a-Yuan’s pants. “Then we can have cursed fruit wine and sell it at a high price!”

“Who would want to buy cursed wine?” She took the wet clothes when he passed them to her and set them on a different nearby rock to dry.

“Someone who has already had too much regular wine?” he mused.

“Alright, but how do we sell it to a vendor?”

Wei Wuxian thought that over. “We’ll just have to open an inn. Be our own vendor.” Finally, she gave a little snort of laughter. He turned away to hide his own smile.

“I see. I’ll inform Uncle of the plans.” Wen Qing stood then, stretching. “Get some rest after you finish here.”

“Only if you do the same!”

“We’re both going to die of exhaustion,” she declared with a sigh as she wandered away.

#4) a-Yuan “A-Yuan!” Why did he always have to run off when Wei Wuxian was trying to buy potatoes? Had Wen Qing trained him to do this to prevent him from bringing potatoes home? If so, it was a very clever tactic.

Wei Wuxian moved through the crowd, swallowing down the hope that once more Lan Wangji would appear and save the day. That was something that would only happen once in their lives.

“A-Yuan!” He came around the corner to find a-Yuan was playing with two kids who seemed to be close to him in age. They were all playing with little grass butterflies, which was probably what attracted a-Yuan away from Wei Wuxian in the first place.

A young woman who was nearby spotted him and came over. “Are you his dad?”

Wei Wuxian nodded because the truth was too complicated and there was something that longed for her simple question to be that truth.

She smiled. “Oh good, I was worried where he might have come from when my girls got his attention. Sorry, they gave you a scare.”

“As long as he’s safe,” Wei Wuxian smiled back. “We don’t live in town, so he doesn’t get to play much with other kids.”

“Ah, I wondered why you didn’t look familiar,” she said. “He’s been very good and gentle. He’s a very sweet kid.”

“Yes, he is. Thank you,” Wei Wuxian felt something calm in his heart. A-Yuan’s smile... that was why they had done all of this. This was what made all their hardships worth it, seeing a-Yuan grow and learn and be happy.

Now if only he could teach the kid to stop wandering away...

#5) A Teacup Wei Wuxian stared at the table and frowned, hands on his hips. He had wanted to surprise Lan Wangji by putting together a meal for them to share (and making sure it wasn’t spicy at all). Lan Wangji had been so busy with his new duties and Wei Wuxian knew how much his husband could use a break. A quiet evening together would be the perfect surprise.

But one of the teacups was missing. Wei Wuxian crouched and looked to see if it had rolled under the table and then looked under all the other furniture in the room. The little white cup was nowhere to be seen.

He could take out their second set, but he had already put food in this one. It would be silly to mess more dishes just for things to be “perfect.” Sighing, Wei Wuxian took out just a cup from the other set and placed it.

Lan Wangji didn’t comment on it when they sat together to eat, serving each other with the ease of ever-growing familiarity. His husband did smile, as if having a private joke, at the black teacup among the rest of the white dishes.

Ah.

Wei Wuxian hid his own smile as he drank from the cup itself. The parallel was pretty funny, now that he thought of it.

+1) A Home The early fall evening held the hint of coming chill, a crispness that was refreshing after the summer. Wei Wuxian breathed in deeply as he tended to the lotuses he and Lan Wangji had coaxed into growing among the rest of the garden.

The Cloud Recesses were quiet around him but for Lan Wangji’s playing, which wrapped out from the open Jingshi door. But Wei Wuxian remembered the sound of his little Lan students’ soft laughter, the sounds that were always coming from the communal kitchen during the day, and the sound of practice swords striking or music being perfected. The Cloud Recesses were rarely as quiet as their rules would imply.

Wei Wuxian leaned back on his heels to turn his gaze down toward the buildings that the Jingshi was set apart from. What filled him was contentment. He didn’t feel trapped, as his teen self would have pictured. He was older now, had been through a lot more and sometimes the quiet was nice. Soothing. Other times, it was fun to try and figure out how to flex those Lan rules. Kept his mind sharp!

Wei Wuxian was apprehensive to think of this as home. He had lost too many homes before. But as the years passed and he found himself with a place he would always be welcome... where kids laughed, where he got to be with his husband, where he got to see their son and nephew often, where Wen Ning has his own little space within walking distance... It was becoming harder and harder to resist the truth.

He’d found another home. Maybe this time, he’d get to keep it.

[choomchoom]

!!!!!!!! oh this is perfect!

My initial thought that led to this prompt was something like “Wei Wuxian, terrifying genius and ADHD icon, can’t find his demon flute because he put it down somewhere and then got distracted,” then I actually read the words I wrote and was like hm I guess it could be super angsty too. But the fluff and Relatable Losing Stuff Content is wonderful and amazing and I’m glad you picked that direction for it :D

I love how you spread the sections over different eras of his life, you managed to tie in so many different moods and relationships and I love how the variety in those things bring out wwx’s personality as a connecting thread - he’s so himself in each of them, even though his surroundings and the experiences he’s had at each point in time are so radically different.

I especially love the silly conversation about cursed wine he has with Wen Qing, I just love their friendship and you write it so well. And “literally lost a child once, on screen” was also one of the things I was thinking of when I thought of the prompt, I laughed out loud at him wondering if Wen Qing had trained a-Yuan to run off to prevent potato purchases 😂

[choomchoom]

Driftrod Day! Gideon the Ninth AU

This is a snippet of an AU in the world of the Locked Tomb books. There are major spoilers for Gideon the Ninth and minor spoilers for Harrow the Ninth in this; feel free to revisit this ficlet after you’ve read the books which are super good. 

I’ve taken some heavy liberties with the setting for cavalier/necromancer driftrod reasons. 

“We’ve found you a partner,” Springer says as Hot Rod walks into his office. 

Hot Rod isn’t surprised. No one’s supposed to know that a Second House cav, a Sixth House cav, and a Third House dignitary with no battle skills to speak of were, more or less willingly, recovered from Canaan House and supposedly recruited, but everyone knows anyway. Most of the base doesn’t like this plan - of course survivors of whatever Lyctor-murderfest was going on there would join up when they don’t have anywhere else to go, and of course they’re going to ditch BoE the second they see a way home. 

BoE needs them, though. Or at least, Hot Rod does. Everyone knows that he wouldn’t last ten minutes on a battlefield without someone watching his back, and no one trains for that job in BoE. House necromancers, the only necromancers out here, have to be paired with House cavaliers. 

He’d assumed that Arcee would be his cavalier forever when they’d first been matched after Hot Rod arrived, but she and her wife have a baby now and Hot Rod’s been all but grounded ever since she quit going out in the field. They would send him out alone if there was an emergency, of course. Hot Rod suspects he’s only alive because there hasn’t been an emergency. 

Arcee had been hoping he’d quit too, he thinks. She’d understood his drive to fight, but she’d also seen the way they look at him - like he’s a weapon, like he’s a thing. She’d probably thought that if he walked away, he could find family again like she had.

But he’s still alive for one reason only, and that’s to fight back. His only skill to speak of is destruction, and even though it makes him monstrous in BoE’s eyes, they’re willing to send him on missions because no one else here can do what he does. He could do without them being just as willing to laugh at him for the way he passes out if he doesn’t have dirt to siphon thanergy from as they leave a planet and the disciplinary marks he gets for having to sleep through most of his first forty-eight hours on any space station, but none of that is enough to make him give up. 

“Which one is it?” Hot Rod asks. Surely Springer knows that he knows about the recruits - he’s at least as tapped into the gossip as Hot Rod. 

“His name is Deadlock,” says Springer. 

That’s quite possibly the least Sixth House name Hot Rod has ever heard, so Second House it is. Dread curdles in his gut. He’d heard that the Second House cav had only stopped fighting back when he’d been stabbed and nearly killed. He’s probably a soldier, and more likely than the rest to still be loyal to the Houses. How is he going to react to Hot Rod, who betrayed them so explosively?

But he can’t say any of that to Springer. Whatever goes wrong is certainly no more than he deserves. “Understood.” 

**

“I’m Rodimus. It looks like we’re going to be working together,” Rodimus says, forcing a smile. He’d been considering the switch for years, with the way his old name sometimes feels like a secure thread connecting him to his past but more and more often like the weight of it yoked over his shoulders. He’d submitted the official name change request as soon as he’d left Springer’s office and sent a memo to his closest associates, of which there aren’t many. The name change isn’t guaranteed to keep Deadlock from figuring out who he is, but it’s certainly worth trying. 

Deadlock looks like he’s around Rodimus’s age, wary and obviously still injured as he looks at him from across the table. There’s a stretch of silence before he speaks, and Rodimus braces himself for Deadlock to have figured out his secret already. 

“I’m Drift,” he says, finally. Rodimus takes note of the change, hopes it was the reason for the pause instead of anything to do with Rodimus. 

It feels like it means something, that he’s chosen to change his name now. It feels like it means he won’t kill Rodimus in his sleep, at least.

**

Rodimus and Drift are largely left alone to train together; no one in BoE wants to supervise a partnership that goes against everything they stand for, even though they’re willing to keep whatever necros and cavs they get their hands on for their undeniable effectiveness. Springer is the closest thing to a real supporter, but even he insists on just letting them train how they like, with the polite excuse that he has nothing to contribute. Rodimus tries to keep himself from feeling slighted or abandoned and it never really works. 

It slips his mind easily enough when his and Drift’s shuttle lands on a quiet corner of one of BoE’s sanctuary planets, and he has thanergy at his fingertips for the first time in months. 

There are no humans buried nearby, so Rodimus is limited to the corpses of small animals. It’s plenty of thanergy to channel into a region far from the shuttle and free of live animals and tweak it into a massive fireball that sends flames and smoke high into the air. 

Drift steps up beside him, one hand on his sheathed rapier. “Wow. That was just...wow.”

Rodimus glances at him, looking for irony or a flat-out lie, but he’s still staring at the blacked dirt where the fireball was, eyes wide in seemingly genuine awe. “You were Cohort, right? Haven’t you seen a Fourth House necro work before?”

Drift looks at Rodimus, in that intense way he has that makes Rodimus want to take a step back. “I only joined a few years ago,” he says. What he doesn’t say, after all the Fourth House necromancers died, sits thick in the air between them. 

“Right.” It makes sense, now that Rodimus thinks about it. Most houses don’t start shipping adepts into the field until they’ve turned 18. And after...well, after Rodimus, technically, the Fourth House hadn't had anyone left to spare. 

He wonders who Fourth House sent to the First at the Emperor’s call. He hopes it wasn’t Flamewar, but he doesn’t bother to hope very hard. 

Drift is still looking at him, and when he notices again he does take a step away, shaking his head and clapping his hands. “Okay. Training. I have complete control over the blast radius, but that only helps me avoid hitting you if I know where you are,” he says. “My last cav and I worked a lot on positioning for different types of fights. I can walk you through what we did, and we’ll adapt what we need to.” 

“Your last cav...” Drift trails off instead of finishing his question, but it’s obvious what he wants to ask. 

“She’s alive! She’s fine, she just has a family now and wanted to retire from active duty.” 

“Oh.” Drift tries to smile, but it’s thin and troubled. 

“You were paired with a necro before you were picked up, right?” 

Drift’s smile disappears. He nods. 

Rodimus waits. They’re going to have to talk about it if they’re going to work together at all, so it might as well be now, when the loss isn’t a schism between them yet. 

“His name was Wing,” Drift says, sounding...unlike himself. Angry, bitter. More like Rodimus had expected Deadlock to sound, before they’d actually been introduced. “He died at Canaan House.” 

“I’m sorry,” Rodimus said. 

Drift smiles at him, softer and more real this time, then looks off into the distance. “I know who you are, you know,” he says. “There’s only been one Fourth House defector in decades.”

Rodimus’s whole body tenses. “Who am I, then?” he asks. 

Drift smiles again. “You’re Rodimus. My necromancer.”

[choomchoom]

Hotlock Week Day 2: Tension

I took a looser interpretation of this prompt - thinking about “tension” led to “romantic tension” which led to the fake dating briefing the afternoon before you’re supposed to go on your first public fake date with your crush and here we are 

**

“And if things get really bad, you can ask Soundwave if he wants to go outside and get high off of sealant fumes, and he will always, always say yes. If you get him talking about Earth music, he will continue to talk about it until you come up with an excuse to go back in and he doesn’t really care if you listen.”

“Deadlock. I’m not going to sneak out of Megatron’s awful party, even on the off chance that it’s actually as awful as you keep making it out to be.” Why would he, when he only agreed to this scheme in the first place because it meant spending an entire evening standing close enough to Deadlock to feel the warmth of his frame, holding his hand, and even kissing him if he manages to work up the courage?

“Ugh. You’re not prepared at all.”

“Starscream’s making you bring an Autobot as a date to repay an old favor, right? To take the attention off of how he’s also bringing an Autobot as his date?” 

Deadlock grunts in the way Hot Rod has learned to tell is an affirmative answer. 

“When has Starscream ever succeeded at not being the center of attention? That’s such a terrible plan. I’ll get a free meal, we’ll both keep straight faces while internally cracking up at whatever kind of scene Starscream makes, and it’ll be great.” 

“The food won’t even be good. Megatron doesn’t believe in energon additives.” 

I’m doing it for you, not the food, Hot Rod wants to say. He forces the urge down. Fake date, he reminds himself. Fake. 

Date. 

That thought leads his mind to a perfectly acceptable thing to say. “We should practice kissing!” 

Deadlock’s optics are bright and intense when he turns toward Hot Rod, and there’s a moment where Hot Rod is torn between speeding away or kissing him senseless. 

“Okay,” Deadlock says. Kissing him senseless is definitely the verdict, and maybe this was a bad idea, actually. 

Hot Rod waits for Deadlock to lean forward a little, and then leans in to kiss him. He keeps it gentle even though the urge to tackle Deadlock and twine all his limbs around him has not gone away. It’s nice enough that he feels lost when Deadlock finally, after more time than a practice kiss probably warranted, pulls away. 

Something settles inside him, though, when he sees Deadlock’s face, and...“I’ve never seen you smile like that.”

“I’m just so excited to see what kind of scene Starscream makes,” Deadlock says. 

Hot Rod tries not to look disappointed and feels himself failing, which he can’t really be blamed for considering that Deadlock basically just threw a bucket of liquid nitrogen at his internals. 

“...with you,” Deadlock says, looking right at Hot Rod with that smile still on his face. Hot Rod can’t help but grin back. Yes, it’s a fake date, but Deadlock’s smile is undeniably real. 

[choomchoom]

Hotlock Week Day 1: Teeth!

I saw “teeth” and thought “angsty vampire au? angsty vampire au!” instead of anything normal so here’s that. Warnings for canon-typical violence/gore and references to starvation. 

Not every battle smells like Nyon. 

Some of them are hand-fought, with gushes of MTOs hacking at each other and both sides depleted of heavy artillery. Those battles smell like curdled energon and the other essences of quick deaths. Other battles are fought in space, or on planets with no atmosphere. 

Every other battle smells like Nyon.

This one has smelled like Nyon for weeks and it’s been nearly unbearable the whole time. The particular scents of bombs and burned-out internals from too much strain on too little energon must cover half the planet by now. When the Autobots’ forces are bolstered and suddenly they’re winning the battle, it’s barely a relief. 

Hot Rod is scouting territory that the Decepticons have just retreated from when he sees Deadlock. More accurately, he almost trips over him. Normally, upon seeing what looks like the corpse of a Decepticon that dangerous, he would sound an alarm and summon a team to make sure of his corpse-hood and take him into custody if there’s still life in his spark. 

But he doesn’t, because there’s a familiar scent coming from Deadlock. He smells like Nyon. 

**

There had always been some disagreement, in Nyon, over whether or not the empties were dead. That their sparks had stopped once was irrefutable; the question was whether what powered their frames after was a spark at all. It was difficult to kill them again, which would have been an advantage if it wasn’t paired with a severe vulnerability: empties could no longer activate energon on their own, making regular energon useless to them, and forcing them to depend on energon that had already cycled through a frame with a living spark to survive. They’d been common in Nyon - an empty became an empty when their frame was depleted of energon so quickly that their spark shorted out, rather than gradually cycling the frame’s energy levels down until the frame went into forced stasis. All the empties Hot Rod had known in Nyon had died there, and he hasn’t noticed any since - they’re indistinguishable from other Cybertronians most of the time, except when they’ve used up all the energy in the energon they’ve been transferred and fall into their own version of stasis. They go very still, in a way more reminiscent of stasis than death, but the deactivated energon sitting in their lines has a unique scent, one that somehow reminds Hot Rod of both life and death.

He knows that not all the empties who have ever existed were in Nyon; the Autobot medical corps have a section of handbook about them, and it stands to reason that energon thieves or a particular kind of injury could have essentially the same effect as Zeta’s experiments. But Hot Rod hasn’t, to his knowledge, encountered one since Nyon. Until Deadlock. 

All at once, he decides that he’s sick of this. He’s sick of this planet and this battle and this war and everything, everything that led him here. He isn’t going to call a team. 

He uses his foot to flip Deadlock over so that he can see his face and whether or not he’s holding a gun. From the scent, he can tell that Deadlock doesn’t have enough energy to do anything like walk, but there’s a strong chance he’s perfectly capable of pulling a trigger. 

He’s unarmed, though, and instead of a gun, Hot Rod finds himself staring into barely-lit but perfectly conscious optics. 

He secures his own weapon to his side and kneels next to Deadlock. Deadlock follows the motion with his optics, moving his neck just enough to track Hot Rod. He doesn’t speak, and more interestingly, doesn’t snarl at him. His frame is littered with dents and scrapes and cracks, but it’s clean of energon; Deadlock had probably made it this far in a battle like this one by licking the energon splattered onto his frame from the Autobots he cut down. 

Hot Rod takes a careful look around, knowing full well that if anyone sees what’s about to happen he’ll be rightfully accused of treason. But even Deadlock doesn’t deserve to be left like this, helpless and paralyzed in enemy territory. Maybe it’s Deadlock’s fault for becoming a Decepticon in the first place - most of Hot Rod’s teammates would say so, at least. But Hot Rod’s teammates aren’t here right now, and Hot Rod remembers seeing lines of empties on the street, crowds of them at the Acroplex, and not having enough energon running through his own frame to help even one of them. But now, he has enough. It’s more for those long-dead than for Deadlock that Hot Rod positions his wrist over Deadlock’s intake and says, “Drink.” 

“I’m not joining the Autobots.” Deadlock’s voice is a raspy whisper barely loud enough for Hot Rod to hear. 

“I don’t expect you to join the Autobots.” 

“Then why?” 

“Because you need energon, and I have plenty.”

Hot Rod can’t tell if Deadlock has run out of arguments or if he’s used up too much energy to be able to speak anymore. Deadlock’s motions are slow as he takes Hot Rod’s wrist between his teeth and uses his fangs to make two small punctures in the energon vein that runs through it. 

“Plenty is big talk for someone with this kind of fuel pressure,” Deadlock says, his voice already sounding better, after a few seconds. 

“You complaining?” Hot Rod asks. As he says it he realizes with a pang that that’s exactly what he said to empties in Nyon, all the dozens of times they said something similar to him. 

Hot Rod glances around again to make sure no Autobots are nearby and then lets himself relax a little at having successfully gotten Deadlock to accept his help. Relaxing is a horrible idea, as it turns out, because the next motion from Deadlock is a startled twitch that Hot Rod feels both in his opened wrist, and in the hand that he’s placed on Deadlock’s finial. 

He yanks that hand away as if Deadlock’s finial had been on fire. “Sorry!” 

“You don’t have to stop,” Deadlock says, not looking anywhere near Hot Rod.

It probably can’t make things worse, Hot Rod reasons, and it feels good to stroke along Deadlock’s finial, one of the only parts of him unmarred by the battle. He keeps up the motion until Deadlock stops drinking, licking at the wounds in the vein to seal them. 

Then it’s Hot Rod’s turn to startle, because the next thing Deadlock does is kiss the inside of his wrist. It’s less intimate than drinking his energon, obviously, but it doesn’t feel that way, and Hot Rod’s spark whirs in a way that distracts him almost enough to forget where he is for a moment. It’s the best gift Deadlock could have given him. 

Deadlock steps away from Hot Rod as they both stand up.

“I hope we see each other again someday,” Hot Rod says, keeping his promise.

“You shouldn’t,” says Deadlock. He looks away, toward where the Decepticons have retreated. 

“Well, I do,” Hot Rod says. After that, he turns around, knowing that Deadlock won’t dare to turn his back on Hot Rod first. He hears Deadlock leave, and he returns to his squad.

[yiqiie]

happy birthday to the man who carries his world on his shoulders, yet still has the brightest smile, wei wuxian

@mdzsnet 5th Anniversary Event Day 1 - Wei Wuxian: “Love” 

@fytheuntamed Untamed Fall Fest Day 31 - Wei Wuxian 

[robotclownindulgence]

Me when relatives are over

[vengeful-supermarket]

[decadesparrow]

“Hey siri what are cute nicknames for my girlfriend?”

“Follow up siri what are cute nicknames for my girlfriend so that she doesn’t get mad at me?”

[wingwaver]

X

[soundwave-and-cassettes]

Sirens & Wrenches: Ratchet Enamel Pins

Two 1.5" soft enamel pins featuring Ratchet

’m very excited to announce the launch of my second Kickstarter with @Pixelladium : Sirens & Wrenches! Back now, pay at campaign’s end, love & treasure your pin(s) forever. And please tell your friends!

[fatherofthebride]

hey with tr*mp abruptly announcing that they’re ending the census count on september 30, much earlier than originally planned (source, dated August 4, 2020), it’s vitally important that you get your census response in immediately.  the census is used to determine how many seats your state gets in the house of representatives and also helps allocate federal funding for schools, roads, hospitals, and fire departments (source 1) (source 2). 

it’s just a brief questionnaire, but it’s one of the most important things you can do to help your community right now. hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line, and some states are already poised to lose multiple seats in the house because of low response rates (source). it only takes a couple minutes, so please, consider taking a break and filling it out now! 

[sixth-light]

I think the Old Guard fandom needs to give serious consideration to the fact that while historical fics are great and amazing, it is also an entirely logical proposition that in whatever sci-fi future universe you favour, the Old Guard will be kicking around fighting for what they think is right with archaic but highly personal weapons. Star Trek? Sure. Vorkosigan Saga? Absolutely. Want Nile, ten thousand years on, to exchange sword tips with Gideon Nav? It checks out! 

I think this would be particularly entertaining in the kind of sci-fi universe where everybody is like “we only retain legendary tales of our mythological homeworld, Terra” and the Old Guard is there to go “first of all, nobody called it-”

[choomchoom]

@squireofgeekdom I’m 👀 at this