Flatline (the actual one) and Flatline (the black and red one) have a relationship to me in that they endure the robot equivalent of having very similar last names + work in the same field so other people regularly get them confused
Summary: Hardly anyone saw Longarm Prime slip from the shadows and through the entrance into long-abandoned underground tunnels.
Word count: 513
Author's Note: Somethin' short and sweet
Tag list: @payaso-affairs, @avenships, @bugsband, @dandorishipping, @severants, @whirlcrash (If you'd like to be put on/taken off the tag list, just ask!)
An Autobot generally went unnoticed within Iacon in comparison to a Decepticon. Even an “Autobot” wanted for espionage and treason. Hardly anyone saw Longarm Prime slip from the shadows and through the entrance into long-abandoned underground tunnels.
Longarm navigated the labyrinth of tunnels with familiarity and a tight hold around the package under his arm. After a series of twists and turns designed to lose any prying optics, he emerged into a clearly-not-abandoned hideout. His hideout. Well, his and another’s, to be precise.
A pink and blue Decepticon looked up from where he was sitting hunched in the corner. Flatline straightened, revealing the small gas canister he had been tinkering with in his lap.
“Welcome back.” Flatline smiled. His optics flicked down to the package Longarm was shielding. “How did it go?” Longarm sighed with a wide smile of his own and looked back the way he had come from.
“Uneventful. It appears Iacon’s criminal element is thriving, despite Sentinel’s claims.” Longarm’s brow creased, thoughtful and concerned, before he crossed the space to join Flatline. “Though I am sure the news of my betrayal will be spreading swiftly, even to those presently willing to...help us out.”
Flatline stood and pocketed the canister. He stood at nearly twice Longarm’s size, even without including his wings, which currently twitched with unspoken agitation. Longarm’s expression warmed in a way that didn’t reach his optics as he shifted the package into his servos.
“Here,” He placed it into Flatline’s claws, “You first, my dear.” Flatline hummed and unlatched the package’s flimsy covering, revealing a small cache of energon; enough to sustain them both for a short while.
As Flatline examined the cubes, Longarm’s gaze lingered on his faceplate. He took a step to the side, closer to Flatline’s hip, and moved to wrap an arm around him. Longarm was halted by a servo shoved into his faceplate, pushing him back. He made a muffled noise and squinted at Flatline through the bot’s digits.
“Uh uh.” Flatline chided. He removed his servo, thankfully, to tap at the faction symbol on Longarm’s chestplate. The Autobot symbol. Longarm looked at his chestplate for a moment before lifting his optics back to Flatline’s. His smile fell into a small line with only the faintest curve to it, his tank-tread shoulders relaxed, and his blunt digits fell open at his sides.
“My apologies.” Longarm’s rumbled reply was spoken with a voice lower than his usual register. The lengthy ch-ch-ch of a transformation cog with additional processes filled the space, twisting and stretching Longarm’s wide body into the lithe but looming frame of his true form: The Decepticon Shockwave.
Flatline’s smile returned twicefold as he tilted his helm back, now the one at a significant height disadvantage. A set of long, razor-sharp claws curled around his waist, pricking the exposed protoform.
“Is this more to your liking?” Shockwave asked, draping his long neck around Flatline’s shoulder pauldrons like a python. Flatline chuckled.
“Mm hm. This is perfect.” He nuzzled against Shockwave’s featureless helm and used a servo to tilt it into a kiss.
Author's Note: Wanted to do something with fields since I rarely include them in my TF fics
Taglist: @payaso-affairs, @avenships, @bugsband, @dandorishipping, @severants (If you'd like to be put on/taken off the tag list, just ask!)
Flatline had always kept his EM field close. Clamped tight against his frame, never straying far from its self-imposed boundary, save for his most intense outbursts of emotion.
An EM field was innate to every Cybertronian - a bubble of energy that was felt rather than seen, painted with their thoughts, their feelings, even faint brushstrokes of their deeper subconscious. Contact with another bot’s field would provide insight into all of the aforementioned. For Flatline, a bot who often fell victim to his own impulses, to exhibit the discipline required to keep his field so unshakably snug…it proved one unshakable truth about him. He would rather deprive himself of one of his senses than allow anyone to see inside of him.
Shockwave was no stranger to discipline either. His own EM field was slim and unambiguous, though in his case, this was innate and then practiced to perfection. As Shockwave lay on his berth, gazing up at his partner sitting straddled on his stomach, he grew curious about what Flatline’s field would reveal if it were to loosen…
“Doctor.”
Flatline’s servos paused in idly travelling along Shockwave’s chestplate. He met Shockwave’s gaze below him. “Would you grant me a request?”
“Anything.” Flatline hummed. His expression quite reminded Shockwave of whenever Ravage found an especially comfortable place within the ship to curl up and recharge. Shockwave rested his servo on Flatline’s pink thigh, his attention still wholly focused on one thing.
“Extend your EM field to me. I have only witnessed it briefly, and I would take great interest in experiencing it in a positive environment.” His servo crept further upwards, closer to Flatline, closer to the center of that which he desired to see. Flatline’s smile hardened. He stared at Shockwave for a long moment.
“Anything else?” Too much time had passed for the joke to land. Shockwave paused and stared back at his partner, who now looked far less at ease than he had mere nanocycles ago.
“Are you not currently happy?”
“No- Yes, I am.” Flatline corrected himself sternly. His rotor blades twitched wider behind him and his voice lowered to a grumble. “But it’s…not a good idea.” Shockwave’s helm tilted slightly.
“Elaborate.” He suddenly found difficulty in keeping Flatline’s gaze. He could sense it, only faintly; the jagged edges clinging against Flatline’s frame, withdrawing from Shockwave’s reach. Flatline fidgeted atop his seat. He splayed a servo across the screen on his chestplate, hiding the display.
“You won’t enjoy it.” He stopped, as if that alone would suffice, but Shockwave’s silence pressured him into saying more. “It’s just a field, Shockwave. There’s nothing interesting there. If I did let you see it you’d probably just be disappointed, or overwhelmed. At best.” A shadow fell across Flatline’s faceplate, unwilling to explain any further. Shockwave’s finials slowly drew back until they were stopped by the soft cushion of the berth.
“Such nonsense.” He finally said, causing Flatline’s optics to snap up to him. “I cannot be overwhelmed by something as futile as unfiltered emotion. I have experienced your worst impulses personally. I know who you are, almost completely.” Shockwave dipped his digits into the opening in Flatline’s plating and brushed the Decepticon symbol branded there. Flatline immediately bristled, but said nothing. “I aim to understand.”
Quickened beeping beneath Flatline’s servo betrayed him. Words churned in his vocaliser but were unable to synthesise into audio. In an act of reassurance, Shockwave withdrew his digits from the opening, and stroked the plating around it instead.
“This is dangerous.” Flatline muttered in a last-ditch attempt to make him change his mind. Shockwave looked at Flatline. His pseudo-faceplate was unreadable, but when next he spoke, some of the edge lessened from his voice.
“We are alone.” He noted. “I will tell no-one. Even once will suffice.”
Another stretch of silence passed between them. Flatline glared; Not at Shockwave, but in his direction, blue optics distant and without their usual shine. Then his servo fell from his chestplate and he sighed.
“Okay.”
With a brief shake of his helm, Flatline leant forward, arching over Shockwave’s boxy chestplate. Shockwave’s finials relaxed upright as Flatline cupped the sides of his helm, and his singular yellow optic dimmed as thumb-digits rubbed soft half-circles into the flat grey metal, angling into the touch.
That’s when he felt it. Flatline’s field unlatching its hooks and expanding outwards. It bubbled and lurched with its own uncertainty, every inch forward threatening a swift retreat. The volatile sphere grazed Shockwave’s own field and froze there, making contact with the boundary, but not crossing it.
To aid and to demonstrate reciprocity, Shockwave reached out and pressed his field into his partner’s, as willing as he would his only servo. Flatline’s field spasmed around Shockwave’s edges, fizzling and jagged and rolling in waves, before the waves collapsed in on themselves and smoothed to a state of skittish apprehension.
Shockwave’s hold tightened around Flatline’s thigh. Dimming his optic had been good foresight, as the sudden sheer amount of information entering his sensors was a lot to process. Doubt, affection, fear, love, anger, want, doubt, fear, resignation, anger, anger, anger. Emotions all alien to Shockwave, but they were entangled so completely with his own being, it felt nigh indistinguishable from sensation born of his very spark.
He felt Flatline shiver against him. He wondered whether he was experiencing something similar, of being wrapped in thoughts and sensations that weren’t his own. Shockwave noticed the thick weight of anxiety in their mingled fields moments before Flatline even spoke.
“Shockwave…?” He had heard that guarded tone in Flatline’s voice before, but never with the accompanying pinched ripples. Shockwave’s servo drifted upwards, as if he could comb through the intangible field around them, and watch it reform afterwards. “...What do you think?”
Shockwave’s optic re-lit. His vision was filled with Flatline’s blue optics, their faceplates only inches apart. He was still holding Shockwave’s helm but his grip had tightened, pinning Shockwave in place as much as cradling him, growing increasingly uneasy as his questions went unanswered. Shockwave’s finials twitched thoughtfully. Steady pressure moulded the most tumultuous corners of their combination into something more stable. A quiet hum rumbled in Shockwave’s chestplate.
What did he think?
His spark was a cold, empty thing in its chamber, functional only in keeping him online. His spark, roiling and alive with passion and emotion and feeling, resided outside of his body, and was looking down at him with bright blue optics.
“This is exemplary.” Shockwave answered. “Our EM fields are complimentary.” His drifting servo found its place around Flatline’s jaw, and nudged him further forward, until his forehelm came to rest against Shockwave’s, “Perhaps prolonged exposure is the next logical step.” Flatline chuckled dryly.
“I don’t know about that.” An unsuccessful attempt at a smile and another misshapen bubble of doubt and resentment. Shockwave found incredible satisfaction that merely his desire to comfort functioned just as effectively in their current state as physical touch did.
“Then might I suggest repeated experiments to accumulate more data?”
Flatline laughed, genuinely this time, and his field illuminated with happiness like a sea of exploding stars.
“Of course.” He nuzzled against Shockwave’s forehelm, careful to avoid his exposed optic, “And I imagine this is a project we’ll have to undertake as a pair, hm?”
“Naturally.” Shockwave knew that went without saying, “We belong together.”
The faceplate occupying his vision shone from chin to chevron as Flatline went quiet. But his silence was only verbal, as before Shockwave could brace himself, Flatline’s field erupted around him. Blinding vivid colour, blooming twice, thricefold in size, and swallowing Shockwave whole. For something so often restrained, the sheer force of it pressed Shockwave down against the berth and ground his ventilation systems to a halt, his digits rendered spasming against Flatline’s cheek.
His HUD fizzled for a moment before coming back into focus, and he registered Flatline petting the side of his helm, looking apologetic.
“That was an accident.” Flatline told him. Shockwave’s helm was still swimming in a fog of love and happiness and need, but he ran a diagnostic of his ventilation systems - all acceptable, simply jarred - and willed his taught pistons to unwind. He wrapped both arms around Flatline and pulled him against his frame, until it truly did become impossible for Flatline to go anywhere else. Not that Flatline appeared to have any objections, as all he did was grin, and let his forehelm fall against Shockwave’s again. The satisfaction in their fields was mutual as a tiny current of electricity travelled across the miniscule gap between their pink and purple helms.
It was unfortunate that Flatline did attempt to wriggle moments later. However, it was only to get more comfortable, ensuring that Shockwave would not be permitted to leave either. His field shrank, but it didn’t completely depart from Shockwave’s. He was allowing them to stay connected for a while longer. It may have been a result of the entanglement, but at that, Shockwave’s own consciousness warmed by a degree or two. He relaxed against the berth, and for once in his lifetime, he savoured the unfamiliar emotions resting within his field.
