AN: I recently reposted this to AO3 because of some site error, and when I did, I also went back to edit it. This onethis one actually called for some heavier revisions. I wrote it at a time when I was so entrenched in the fandom that a lot of phrasing had gotten normalized that frankly... squicked me out, coming back to it years later. Congratulations, I played myself. The terms "twin" and "brother" are tossed out a lot in TF in a way that feels very different, having come back to the fandom after some years, and it's all striking me as way more incest-y than I ever intended, so I've gone back and heavily toned down the stuff that made me uncomfortable on my re-read.
If that... annoys anyone (which I can't imagine it would), oh well. I'd rather clean this up, improve it, and make it something that actually feels fun to read. I still find the idea of spark-connections and same-model robots very fun and worth exploring, but there's no reason to be using human terminology for such a relationship, especially with the unfortunate implications that come along with it.
Rewind's helm was tipped back, his visor dim, his vents coming in ragged gusts. The little mech was on his knees, legs spread, shivering as a skilled hand slid down his abdominal plating with painful slowness. "O-oh," he gasped as fingers slid dexterously along seams, moving slowly lower, lower, closer to the minibot's gently rocking hips. "Please..."
But his tormentor knew his body well, and deftly avoided the archivist's interface panels, instead skirting to the side and rubbing against the delicate mechanisms of Rewind's inner thigh, pressing his lips to the nape of his neck. Rewind gave a shuddering sigh, spreading his trembling legs wider, letting a soft, needy sound escape from his vocalizer. His voice hitched and glitched through a digital register as another hand came up to lightly stroke his camera.
"Ahh, I-" A glossa was peeking out, lightly lapping at his neck cables. "Oh, oh please-" And finally his tormentor reached to gently knead fingers against his interface panel. It slide aside with no hesitation. Rewind's cord pressurized into the waiting fingers, which began to leisurely pump. The archivist's voice dissolved into inarticulate moaning and he let his head loll back, hips rolling in an easy, slow motion into the stroking hand.
From over Rewind's shoulder, a yellow visor flickered over a crooked grin, a helm nuzzled against his neck. "You're needy, Rewind," the voice that whispered in Rewind's audial was not the familiar low rasp of a mnemosurgeon, but something lighter, something closer to the archivist's own tones. The small mech tucked himself close against Rewind's back lifted his visor to regard Chromedome with a lazy smile. "Like what you see, Chromedome?"
And, sitting in front of the two entwined twins, Chromedome did.
Then he woke up.
Oh, Primus, not again.
The first time Chromedome had met Eject, he'd been somewhat nervous. He had known that Rewind had a spark-twin for quite a while, but circumstance and the war had kept them mostly apart. It wasn't until long after he and Rewind had started to get serious that the two long-lost minibots finally had a chance to reunite for what was the first time in, he'd gathered, ages.
"Does he turn into a memory stick, too?" Chromedome had asked, looking to his smaller companion.
"No; he's an antenna, actually," the minibot replied, casting about eagerly. Chromedome was understandably nervous about meeting Eject, but at the same time, he couldn't help but feel warmly amused by Rewind's enthusiasm. The little mech had been somewhat despondent as of late, his usual chipperness fading in the wake of another string of failures in regards to his ongoing quest to reunite with Dominus Ambus.
Chromedome was still uncertain as to how he felt on the subject. He was undoubtedly jealous. He was ready to admit that to himself, even though it seemed absurd considering the commitment he and Rewind had made to one another. He couldn't quite wipe his spark clean of the sensation, even so. He was unabashed at his disapproval of the lengths Rewind was willing to go through for answers, even though he understood (Primus, did he ever understand) how haunted a mech could become by uncertainty...
All of this aside, he hated seeing Rewind slip into his darker moments. His little companion was Chromedome's bulwark against the mess he'd made of his life, but not even Rewind was infallible, and when Chromedome saw that the unending string of failures was beginning to get to Rewind, he ached for his lover and did what he could to soothe him. The mnemosurgeon had to wonder, though (no matter how hard he tried not to think about it, the nagging notion refused to leave his processor) if his strength could hold out for the two of them, when so often he needed Rewind to lean upon.
The thought that it might not frightened him.
Today was not the day for those thoughts, though. Rewind had snapped out of his fugue when he'd heard Eject was going to be working in the area for the next few months. Eject traveled around quite a bit, working as he did in communications. It was hard even for non-combatants to have any semblance of a normal life during the war, but from what he'd been told, Eject had no qualms about going where he was needed, when he was needed. If such a travel-heavy lifestyle had ever bothered him, he'd never said anything about it to Rewind.
"He has a very head-on approach to dealing with problems. Or challenges. Or... anything," the archivist had told him with a shrug before they set off for the station. "I guess in a way being shuttled from assignment to assignment suits him."
The shuttle that Eject had arrived on had docked long ago, but neither Chromedome nor Rewind had spotted the Eject yet. Rewind was having an understandably difficult time peering through the shifting sea of moving legs, so Chromedome was wading through the crowd, using his height to try and spot a minibot whose appearance he only knew from a vague description.
Eventually a flash of blue caught his eye, and he noticed a small mech with navy-colored plating weaving his way through the crowd with an air of determination, carrying only a medium-sized crate by the handle. He was about the same height as Rewind, and nearly the same shape but for a bit of stockiness. Chromedome stretched himself on the tips of his pedes and called in a voice that was simultaneously loud and yet somehow uncertain, "Eject?"
Immediately the little bot froze, turning to face him. Like Rewind, he wore a facemask, but the visor that stretched across his helm was a bright yellow, closer in color to Chromedome's than to Rewind's. Apparently reaching a decision, he lowered his head and pushed his way through the crowd, stopping only when he stood before the taller mech. He stared up at him for a few moments before he said, "So you're Chromedome, huh?"
Chromedome was unsure what to say except, "Yep."
"You're taller'n I thought you'd be." The minibot cocked his head contemplatively. Chromedome just stood there. He'd faced down more than his fair share of threats during the war, and seen his share of horrors even before then, but he couldn't recall feeling quite as nervous as he did at that moment, regarded sternly by the masked and inscrutable minibot. The pause stretched on, and then Chromedome felt an unexpected snap against the outer edges of his field, a whip-flicker of amusement. "Nice to meet ya, mech," Eject finish warmly, offering a hand up.
The air left Chromedome in one long, smooth, relieved sigh as he took it. "You too, Eject."
Eject turned out to be a very easy mech to get along with, a friendly enough fellow, if not exactly one who seemed to be as sensitive to social cues as Rewind was. He would often pause at odd times in conversation, was sometimes confused by idioms and seemed to only pick up on sarcasm half the time. Rewind smoothly picked up on these rough patches and guided Eject along with patience and affection.
Eject was a pragmatic mech who spoke plainly and only when he felt that words were necessary. Chromedome mistakenly assumed that perhaps he was a little less intelligent than Rewind until a conversation over some high grade turned to Eject's job, and he began excitedly chattering about the ins and outs of secure electronic communication.
"He's a cipher specialist," Rewind explained. "And he really dives into his work. He can integrate with electronic communication arrays on a deeper level than any other mech I've met."
Eject had grinned and ducked his head somewhat bashfully over his energon. "Thanks, Rewind." The plating of his face was an unusually dark color, an orange-red that matched his mask. It was somewhat reminiscent of the color of Rewind's face, albeit a deeper shade, but still striking compared to the silvery countenance that Chromedome was used to seeing on other mechs. He also couldn't ignore how much Eject resembled Rewind, though he supposed that came along with the "spark-twins" package, with them being similar models and all. It was kind of charmingly bizarre... or bizarrely charming. He couldn't decide which.
"It's just the truth!" Rewind declared. He'd had a little more high grade than either of them, and had entered the exuberant phase that preceded the first stage of his typical inebriation cycle.
"I'm good at what I do," was what Eject would admit. "Wired for it and all." He had mentioned earlier that his processor itself had been constructed with communication tech in mind, and in some way this explained to Chromedome why Eject didn't seem to click when it came time to interact with anything that wasn't a computer system. He had been made, like Rewind, as a disposable: to serve a purpose. Adjusting to a life beyond its intended scope was bound to have its shortcomings.
"Tell Domey about the time the entire comm grid went down at Polyhex," Rewind leaned over to prod the other minibot.
"Oh, man," Eject let out a whooshing sigh. "That's a long story."
"But a good one," Rewind chimed in.
Chromedome couldn't help but grin, cocking a brow. Eject and Rewind had an odd chemistry; Rewind was sharp, alert, excitable, a very quick and scrutinous mech. Eject seemed to have a slower, more dogged enthusiasm for the world around him, less manic than Rewind's, but enduring. "Go ahead. I'd like to hear it."
"You bet," Eject replied with a grin. "Okay, so at the time I wasn't even at Polyhex. I was waaay out in the badlands to the east, and I get a call in the middle of my recharge sayin' they need me at the city, bad. Comm net was down. Polyhex is all about air superiority, so if your fliers can't communicate, it gets messy. We needed to get there, and we needed to get there fast. Ain't no-one at this outpost but us techies, so we had to make a choice of whether we were gonna wait for a heavy escort or try to scoot on in before our aerial forces took a beating."
He paused to take a sip of high grade. "Guess which one we did?"
This soon dissolved into a rather dramatically-recounted tale of his squad's journey to Polyhex. It had been, Eject gravely recounted, one of the longest nights of his life, and included a desperate charge across the barren plains, a brief but highly perilous trip across a tributary of the Sea of Rust, and had culminated in their stumbling upon the site of a vicious and highly disorganized battle along the border. Rewind chimed in at that point, displaying clips of footage from the skirmish. There were only a few of them, all disjointed flashing images and bursts of frantic sound, but they conveyed what the chaos must have been like quite well. Eject also obligingly recreated as much of the scene as he could remember in miniature, using their cubes to build the structure of the canyon and a handful of bolts from a maintenance kit to represent the forces gathered inside.
"We didn't do any of the fightin', of course, we just tried not to get caught in the crossfire, which was... heh, it was a hell of a thing. One of our own finally spotted us and took us up into the outpost nearby. Never got that fella's name, but I think he probably saved our lives. Once we were there, it wasn't too hard to get things back up and running. I had to manually maintain comm cohesion all the rest of the night." Eject looked up, grinning. "But we got it done."
By then they were all relaxing in the warm glow of the high grade, and it wasn't a difficult task to switch the subject to something more lighthearted. Over the first few days Chromedome's impression of Eject had begun to properly form. He had a good spark, even if he seemed a little disconnected from the rest of the world at times and more than his fair share of affection to give, not at all a fellow who was difficult to befriend. Chromedome assumed that Eject was the slower, steadier foil to Rewind's perky excitability, but a week into the visit, his expectations were shattered once again, because Rewind brought up Eject's favorite topic.
He brought up sports.
Chromedome had never had much time for a life of leisure, and was aware of recreational sports in a vague sort of way. It was hard not to know a little bit about racing, which was probably the most popular, but as far as Mecha-soccer went...
"There ain't been a proper game in ages," Eject was explaining, "but hopefully later on, when things have settled down, someone'll think to get a stadium set up. Maybe even a few. Hell, if I'm around, maybe I'll get the word out. I think it's gonna be important to the recovery of Cybertron."
This was an odd statement to make. Rewind's visor flickered in a gesture that Chromedome recognized as a slight smile as the mnemosurgeon asked, "What makes you say that?"
"Okay, it's like this." They'd been walking down a hallway through the inner passageways of the outpost when the conversation cropped up, and Eject slowed his pace, bringing his hands up to gesture as he spoke. "The thing about sports is—about most sports, anyway—is that they're a competition. And that usually means you got teams. I know you're thinkin', well ain't that gonna divide folks more than unite them? In a way, yeah. But if you think about it, in a way they're all united when they're there, no matter who they're rootin' for, cos they're all there for the game." He went on, "But what do you think makes anyone root for a specific team?"
Chromedome tilted his head in thought, and looked to Rewind. The archivist gestured for him to go forward. "Not sure," he finally admitted.
"Location. If a team represents a city, then everyone in that city's probably gonna back 'em. That's the way it used to be. And when we do get this war done with, and we've got to find things that bring old enemies together, it's gonna be little things like this, like standin' and cheerin' next to someone over something you both love, that're gonna count." For a moment he paused, and then added, with a rueful grin, "I guess that seems kinda naïve. Maybe I don't think about things the way most folks do, on account of... you know." He tapped the side of his head. "But I really believe it can make a difference."
Chromedome reached down and gently laid one hand on the minibot's broad shoulder-plate. Eject looked up to him. "I don't know what things are going to be like when this war ends, but honestly? I don't think your idea could hurt." When Eject smiled behind his mask, Chromedome noticed that his visor dimmed in the very same way Rewind's did.
Sometime after that, the dreams began.
The pattern was usually the same. Somewhere in the middle of a pleasant and dreamless slumber the recharge visions would hit his process with striking vividness. Most often than not it would be Eject who'd initiate things, working Rewind into a state of desperate, needy arousal while Chromedome watched. On some occasions he would be pleasuring both of them, listening to the sound of their voices panting for him in unison, and he woke from one of those with his fans actually faintly whirring.
It went without saying that he felt outrageously guilty for it.
He genuinely liked Eject, but his processor's insistence of including the little mech in his recharge visions felt too much like some sort of bizarre objectification. Chromedome was well aware of the fact that many mechs considered the prospect of bedding spark-twins to be a highly sought-after fantasy, but it felt wrong to reduce two mechs, one of which he was fond of and another he deeply and unwaveringly loved to some sort of fantasy. He wasn't consciously trying to do anything of the sort, of course. It was just happening.
The dreams persisted, though, and eventually his perceptive partner began to notice that Chromedome was waking up in a less-than-peaceful manner. Rewind did not push or pry, and left Chromedome to try and stifle his embarrassment on the mornings when his jolting out of sleep also woke up his Conjux. He could sense the minibot's growing concern, though, and he knew eventually he would have to say something. Rewind was obviously only holding back because Chromedome hadn't been waking up screaming.
It was well into the second month before he decided to bring the issue up. Eject had been visiting and even staying over quite regularly, and had fit himself quite nicely into the other two mechs' routine. Their sector was relatively peaceful, far removed from the front line of combat, and for a few moments out of each day, one could almost stand still in his living quarters and imagine that maybe, just maybe, the dreadful fighting would end someday. There's been some sort of software-related collapse at the comm center recently, so Eject had been spending full days there, sleeping only when he had to. Rewind had made Eject reassure him he wouldn't overwork himself, and once that promise had been delivered, the bonded pair settled into a few days of peace and quiet. It was nice having Eject over, of course, but it was also nice to have some time to themselves.
Chromedome eventually decided that, well, it was more or less now or never, and finally worked up the courage to broach the subject of his recharge visions. The two of them were still in the berth when he brought it up. Chromedome was sitting up with his legs stretched out, and Rewind was perched attentively at his side.
"I've... been having dreams." Chromedome finally admitted miserably. "I don't know what brought them on. I don't usually have dreams like this."
"I know," Rewind said, reaching up to touch his arm gently. There was a note of concern in his voice that only deepened Chromedome's guilt and embarrassment. "If you're having nightmares again, I don't want you to hold it all in just because Eject's visiting-"
"No," Chromedome hurriedly interrupted. "No, Rewind it's... it's not that." He reached over to cover the little mech's hand with his own. "I promise, it's not that." Rewind only cocked his head, curious and, Chromedome could tell, somewhat doubtful. Oh, Primus. There was really no easy way to say this. "It's about you. And... and me."
"Oh." Rewind's visor flickered and then he added, in a decidedly more pleased tone of voice, "Oh." Chromedome could hear the grin in his voice. "I—aha, I'm sorry, Domey, I didn't even think of that possibility..."
Chromedome gave a nervous little chuckle. "Yeah. Um. Well. It's... that's not all. I just—please promise me you won't freak out, Rewind, I can't help what goes through my head when I recharge-"
"I know that," Rewind responded quickly. "You'd better go ahead and tell me because you are freaking me out a little bit right at the moment."
Chromedome sighed, and then simply, miserably, said, "And Eject. Was involved."
A moment of silence ensued. Chromedome hung his head wretchedly. Rewind very slowly looked down at his hands, and then back up at Chromedome. "Well." He began, and at first his tone was rather blank and inscrutable, but amusement began to blossom through it with each word. "I wouldn't have thought you were that kinky, Domey." By the time the minibot spoke his pet name for his lover, the grin was audible in his voice.
Chromedome felt a rush of relief that quickly overpowered any embarrassment his partner's amused reaction might have otherwise provoked. His EM field shivered with it. "I just..."
"It's okay, really it is. You don't have to feel guilty about dreaming, Chromedome, for Primus's sake. I'll admit, I'm quite flattered. This is the first time I've ever heard of anyone having, y'know, those kinds of dreams about me." He tilted his head. "And it isn't as if an attraction to spark-twins is anything out of the ordinary."
Chromedome nodded, heaving a deep sigh. The more Rewind spoke about it, the more silly it had seemed to be so worried in the first place. Maybe he was so cautious of these sorts of things because he was, at all times, painfully aware of how secretive his life was, how much he had never told Rewind...
His train of thought came to a screeching fiery halt when Rewind asked, his voice still amused and curious, "Did you like it?"
Chromedome jerked upright. That embarrassment was making a quick comeback. "Wh-what?"
"Did you like it?" Rewind asked, leaning over and placing one hand gently against Chromedome's chest plating. "I mean, obviously in the dream you were probably enjoying yourself." Chromedome felt his faceplates heating up under his mask. It was a little ridiculous to be so shy about the subject. It wasn't as if he and Rewind were any strangers to intimacy, but he couldn't quite stem his bashfulness. "But when you woke up, what did you think of it?"
"I-I... well," he began intelligently.
Rewind was scooting closer, and a second hand joined the first. His voice dropped lower and lower as he spoke. "Did you realize that you had a thing for twins when you woke up the first time? Did you think about it even when you weren't trying to, when Eject and I were close?" Rewind crawled up into the stunned mech's lap, stretching up to whisper into his audial, "Did it get your fans whirring, Domey?"
For a few long moments Chromedome said nothing. He just sat there, his gaze pinned forward, stunned. His libido, which had been buried deep under layers of embarrassment, had seen its opportunity and was quickly rising to overcome his other emotions. Finally, softly, he said, "Yes."
"Now I'm just guessing here, but I'll bet a good chunk of those dreams of yours had you enjoying a little bit of a show, didn't they? Did you like that? Did you like watching us touch each other? Kiss each other? Did you like watching me make Eject overload?"
Chromedome's vents gasped raggedly. Oh Primus, he could feel his plating heating up, and so could Rewind, perched as he was in Chromedome's lap, so it was no use denying what his body was giving away. "Y-yes."
Rewind's hummed in Chromedome's audial, an analogue for a purr that his motorless frame could not produce. He let his satisfaction flicker through his EM field. "You poor thing. Feeling so guilty all this time and so revved up, too." He paused for just a moment, and then went on, in a softer tone of voice, "You know you can tell me anything, right?" The moment of earnest affection threw Chromedome off a bit, and he tilted his helm to the side to gently nuzzle Rewind's.
"Sorry," he murmured. "I just... I didn't want you to think that I..."
"That you were reducing me to some kind of fetish? Chromedome." Rewind sat back, regarding him with bright visor. "We've been together for ages now. I know you. I trust you." He reached up to gently cup the side of the larger mech's face. "I love you."
Chromedome's mask retracted, and he smiled warmly at Rewind, turning his face to press his lips against the other's palm. "I love you too, Rewind." He reached up, gently folding his arms around the other mech. "Primus, now I feel kind of... I don't know. Stupid about it."
"That's okay." Rewind let his mask part as well, leaning forward to place a light kiss against his lover's lip plating. "I'd rather you be too careful than not careful enough. It's sweet of you." Chromedome merely smiled by way of reply, warmly, tenderly, and he reached up to brush Rewind's cheek with his thumb, leaning in for another kiss.
Gradually, their kisses deepened, became less chaste, and soon heat was flushing through Chromedome's frame and into Rewind's. Wordlessly, needing no prompting but the cues of their bodies, which they were both well-versed in, they made love, coming together in an almost leisurely escalation of lazy heat. Chromedome guided Rewind through his release, holding the panting, squirming mech against him, murmuring softly, affectionately into his audial until the Rewind gave a soft whimper, overload rocking his senses until he went utterly limp against his partner.
They both lay there for a long time afterward, letting their frames gradually cool as blissful afterglow washed through their EM fields. Rewind traced lazy patterns on Chromedome's broad chest, and Chromedome curled in a loose arc around the smaller mech, occasionally letting a sigh of contentment rush through his vents.
All was calm, quiet, and still.
Then Rewind twisted and looked up, an unmistakably mischievous grin on his faceplates as he said, "So, you wanna ask him, or should I?"