A/N: Sooo…I can only hope that LL #16 means things are looking up for my favourite pair of misfit toys.
Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers. By this point, I think that's kind of obvious.
Warnings: Spoilers for LL #16, and quite frankly, all the Tailgate/Cyclonus ship references in Lost Light and MTMTE.
Important Things
"No. We haven't spoken. Not about that. Important things are felt, not said."
Those words have been hammering around Cyclonus's head for days now, ever since the crew's return from the Functionist Universe.
They were only whispering during the battle against the DJD, but they kept muttering away, growing louder and stronger. All the way through the aftermath of the battle on Necroworld, through the latest of Tailgate's sleep fits, through the mess with Killmaster…
They started to scream after he told Whirl about Tailgate's sleep fits.
He knows the ex-Wrecker said something to Tailgate. He's not stupid.
He knew that the attempts to conceal the cause of his injuries could make the little bot look at him differently, but he never expected the brush-off.
Never expected him to stay on Necroworld.
Never expected him to give back the innermost energon.
"Important things are felt, not said."
He doesn't recall how he ended up on the enlarged Skip. Everything after Tailgate rejected him was a blur, as if his cranium was full of organic cotton.
He tried to understand it. He really did try.
And yet the pain, humiliation and grief burned in his circuits, too hot to let loose in tears or even in rage.
He was vaguely aware of raising his claws to his face, tearing dark gouges onto his cheek plates, hoping the pain would seep out along with his energon from the metallic tracks…
And then a surprisingly gentle set of pincers pulled his claws away.
"Don't."
Whirl had quietly sat down beside him then, not judging; hell, not even asking.
He couldn't pretend it wasn't welcome.
The chopper-bot has rarely left his side since, his deliberately psychotic personality seeming almost subdued around Cyclonus.
And only around Cyclonus.
Whirl had been pushing him and Tailgate to admit their feelings to each other, to admit they…
No.
Not that.
Even if he could say the words, he would never be worthy of that.
"Important things are felt, not said."
And then the communication came from Fortress Maximus.
Something he had feared right down to his spark since the cybercrosis had almost struck, but he had still entertained a sparkling's hope that it would never come to pass.
He doesn't recall all of what happened after Rodimus broke the news to him.
But he remembers the grief tearing its way out of him. The scream filling the increasingly cramped space inside the ship.
The accidental blow to Rewind's chest.
Chromedome snarling in his face and pressing every single one of Cyclonus's abused and spark-broken buttons.
"You have nothing. You think you do, but it's not real. Because when it's real, it hurts."
And there are no words to describe that ache, that sorrow that wrapped itself around his spark and crushed it hollow.
A part of him acknowledges that he will always be thankful to Whirl in that moment. The chopper-bot had simply folded him up in his lean arms and was kind enough not to point out the optical fluid spilling from his optics onto scratched white chestplates.
After that…well.
They had ended up here.
Wherever here was.
If this isn't the Afterspark, then it's a damn decent replica.
Rodimus is currently have a not-so-quiet freak-out, as is his wont.
Magnus seems to be quietly accepting of his new lot in life. Or rather, afterlife.
Ratchet and Whirl, both committed atheists, are struggling to mesh their viewpoints with what they can see, hear, and feel before them.
He speaks up.
"You need convincing."
The medic rounds on him. "Yes! Yes, I do!"
He gestures at the flat expanse of grey metal. "What can you show me – what can you or anyone possibly show me – to make me believe that this is the place where the dead go to live?"
And as if by magic – or possibly an act of a god – Trailcutter and Pipes appear.
Healthy. Whole. Unmarked.
"Important things are felt, not said."
The ring of agony around his spark falls away as realisation hits.
If they are here, the long-dead victims of Overlord and the DJD…
He takes off on autopilot, placing his faith in a set of gods he will be forever grateful to if they can just give him this one thing, this one token…
After flying for what seems like hours to his tortured spark, but is probably a few breems at most, he lands next to a ring of metal monoliths and transforms.
He scans the interior frantically as he staggers between the plates.
And there he is.
A little figure in teal and white, sitting cross-legged and far more quietly than he ever did in life.
Tailgate turns at the sound of footsteps behind him, his optic band shining in the quasi-darkness.
"I knew you'd find me."
Cyclonus falls to his knees, all his strength and well-cultivated stoicism departing in a sparkbeat.
Tailgate is the one to crawl over to him, his little arms wrapping themselves around his chestplates, his knee plating scuffling against Cyclonus's hip plates, marking the sleek purple paint with chips of white gloss.
He doesn't care.
He wraps his arms around Tailgate, as he had the luxury of doing only once before. He hadn't been able to enjoy that embrace at the time, what with being shot repeatedly by a somewhat overzealous security team after a perceived assassination attempt on Megatron.
But now…
Now he fits his claws around the hubcaps on Tailgate's tyres, against the small of his back, across the back of his head, trying to imbue every gesture with the emotions he wasn't brave enough to admit out loud in life.
Important things are felt, not said.
He prays that Tailgate can feel what those gestures are, what they say. How every touch, every movement is a desperate echo of everything his spark has been screaming out for so long.
"I'm sorry."
He lets out an unsteady vent of air as Tailgate murmurs into his chestplates.
"For what, little one?"
"For what I did. I-I thought it was the only way, staying behind…I didn't want to keep hurting you."
Cyclonus can feel the prickle of optic fluid building up behind his retinal cameras.
"I would have gladly accepted all that pain, for you."
"But it's not supposed to hurt, Cyclonus." Tailgate reluctantly lifts his head away from the flier's chestplates and stares him straight in the optics.
"It's never supposed to hurt."
He leans back enough to look at Tailgate, drinking in every angle of the little bot's face. The pain in his chest, throat and head has shifted from rage and grief into something softer, older…and so much more dangerous for him.
"…Then how do you know it's real?"
Tailgate studies him quietly for a few moments, then places a small hand on his emaciated cheek plate.
"Does that hurt?"
He curls his claws around the little hand, so small against his silver digits, and tries not to squeeze.
"No."
"Then why is that less real?"
Because he is a bot who has dealt in shades of grey for so long that only extremes of emotion can be trusted.
Because anger, rage, love…after a point, they all hurt.
Because anyone in his long life who has gotten close to him, has ended up hurting him.
If it hurts him, twists his spark until all he can do is scream, then it's real.
But Tailgate's kindness, his gentleness, his stubbornness…they have penetrated his spark more deeply in two years than Galvatron and the Dead Universe managed in six million years.
"Because…I am not one who is accustomed to a lack of pain. A lack of pain means that something is wrong."
The other hand sneaks up and presses against the other side of his face. Tailgate's optic band dims sadly.
He can feel his servos beginning to cramp. Rearranging Tailgate against his chestplates, he shuffles backwards until he is resting against one of the metal monoliths, his little bot curled up safely in his arms and showing absolutely no sign of letting go.
He threads his claws in between Tailgate's stubby fingers and rests their hands together over his spark.
"Is…is all this wrong? Are we wrong?"
He shakes his horned head gently.
"Never. The fault is mine, not yours. I assumed you knew what I felt for you, and what you felt for me."
Tailgates studies their joined hands and squeezes Cyclonus's fingers just enough to warm the slightly trembling plates.
"Then that's what I feel for you. What I feel doesn't hurt me, and it doesn't hurt you. It shouldn't ever hurt you."
He buries his head in Cyclonus's shoulder, his hand still wrapped in silver claws.
The pain of the feelings he can't even say aloud has changed yet again, into emotions he is slightly more comfortable with.
Grief that it took him two lifetimes to realise that not all emotions should hurt.
Anger at himself for not making his intentions clear.
Sadness that all he and Tailgate can look forward to now is ascending together, when they could have done so much more with the time they had.
"Important things are felt, not said."
His free hand strokes a slow path along Tailgate's back struts, his palm pressing against turquoise paint and white gloss, trying to make a memory of the little bot's frame before Primus summons them.
He presses his entire spark into each touch, finally saying everything in his soul that his vocaliser could never manage in life.
I'm sorry.
I'm here.
Please don't leave me.
I love you.
END