Shockwave's quarters were roughly the same size as Soundwave's, but seemed much larger. It wasn't just the absence of five lively Casseticons sharing the quarters—the sheer lack of stuff in Shockwave's room made it seem bigger. The relatively spacious room of a highly-ranked officer practically echoed with the emptiness, the only objects being a starkly bare large-sized berth and a data terminal with dust on its keys.
Soundwave was unsurprised. From past surveillance, he knew that Shockwave spent most of his time in his lab, and used his personal quarters only for sleeping. He followed Shockwave to the berth, and sat beside the mech that would soon be his partner for all eternity. The whole thing seemed so unreal that it was hard to be nervous, but Soundwave managed. He ignored the nervousness as he unlatched his spark chamber, while Shockwave did the same with his own. Neither mech needed unnecessary words, and their wordless synchronicity reassured Soundwave. They were not the same, but they were usually on the same page. As one, they leaned forward, their sparks drawing ever closer. Pale blue and white lines began to crackle across their sparks' surface as their chestplates pressed flush against each other. There was no need to demonstrate passion with excess force; their passion was reserved for advancing science and protecting their family (respectively, and now, together) and for advancing the Cause—not for fleeting bits of pleasure shared with another mech.
As their essences mingled together, everything became hazy and confusing, if pleasant. Soundwave's protectiveness towards his family became Shockwave's protectiveness towards his own creations and experiments; Shockwave's intense curiosity, bent toward the world around him, melded with Soundwave's own Host instinct to seek out information. A calmness born of a low emotional range blended with a calmness derived from a perfect control over intense emotions.
And Shockwave, what part of him he could distinguish as Shockwave, gasped in wonder at this new discovery. He had always associated strong emotions with poor self-control and illogical reactions. But Soundwave, a mech who he had always assumed was like himself, a creature of few strong feelings, was precisely the opposite. He felt so strongly, even now, but did not let his emotions rule him.
To have such logic and control in the face of such intense emotional feelings was even more impressive! Truly, he had chosen wisely in pursuing Soundwave as a life partner. His satisfaction sent tendrils of pleasure through the spark he was connected to. Soundwave let out a gentle, monotone hum at it. Shockwave's inner thoughts and feelings weren't a surprise for him the way his own had been for Shockwave, but Shockwave had a soft, low-grade warmth in his spark, in his very being, that Soundwave hadn't expected.
Shockwave may have been a mech who eschewed pleasure and emotions in favor of cold logic and efficiency, but he was not a cold mech. He thrummed with a very intense drive, a dedication that would never—could never—die. The well of his curiosity was deep and unending, the pleasure in knowing, in finding, just in seeking (for seeking in itself gave some knowing) rang very true to Soundwave, who could never understand how mechs could be indifferent to knowledge offered. Knowledge could be the difference between your survival or your death, or that of your loved ones. It could give you power over another mech.
Shockwave felt warm, steady, intensely curious, cautious and considering. Soundwave didn't feel an iota of cruelty or brutality in the mech. Sadism was just another illogical, meaningless pleasure in Shockwave's eyes, a thing that offered no temptation in itself. Soundwave did not doubt Shockwave was capable of any number of things that would sicken even many of the more bloodthirsty and vicious of the Decepticons—images flashed before his eyes, some pulled from Shockwave's memories, some from his own, of twisted, mutilated creatures who's eyes and minds screamed out in pain, begging for a merciful end, of Autobots (and a few Decepticons) that wound up on the ends of experiments where results were all that mattered, and the suffering of a few was irrelevant (and concern for it, deemed illogical). Entire species subjugated or destroyed to obtain access to scientifically necessary rare materials.
Soundwave saw all this and accepted it. His own sins were brought to mind but Shockwave was not concerned by them. The flow of memories and emotions pushed the pleasure even higher. It seemed perverse to get heightened enjoyment from such disturbing memories but Soundwave knew it could have been memories of anything: distilling energon, cleaning waste buckets, watching a news program, and it would have sped up the data flow, pushed the energy exchange higher, deepened the merge.
Thoughts mixed together, of pleasures (approval for a new experiment, the sound of Ravage purring at his feet) of concern (disappointing data results, a severely wounded symbiont) and it was hard to tell which belonged to which, or which mech WAS which mech. Weren't they one and the same?
The bond was beginning to form, a connection in one's mind and spark, someone else's thoughts, someone else's feelings, always in the corner of one's mind if not in the forefront. For Soundwave it was much like when a new Cassette was being formed, the newly developing mind and soul beginning to anchor to Soundwave's, only this was happening much more rapidly.
For Shockwave, it was a much more alarming (and exhilarating!) experience.
His mind had always been his own, his thoughts locked in isolation. He had never heard another's thoughts or felt another's emotions bleeding into his own. He had nothing to prepare him for the experience, and his vents heaved as he struggled to process the dual existence. The experience of another mind, seeing all the things he did, hearing the sounds he did, learning the facts he did, but processing, thinking, planning, feeling, in an entirely different manner, thoughts Shockwave would never have had springing to the surface of his/their mind. It was overwhelming. It could not be borne. He struggled instinctively to free himself from the disorienting experience. To bond had been a logically sound decision, but one could not risk one's sanity!
He tried to pull himself together to break apart from the merge, but he couldn't seem to become him again. Dizzingly, he could see himself, his own perpetually blank expression and steadily glowing golden optic, through Soundwave's two optics, while simultaneously looking at Soundwave from his usual vantage. He finally managed to flail himself nearly off the berth, but Soundwave's strong, steady arms wrapped around his chassis and secured him tightly against the blue mech's open chest.
A thin undercurrent of panic pulsed underneath the confused, yet coldly calculating remnants of his singular mind. Until a tingling wave of very warm, soothing energy seemed to sweep through his every atom. It was like having a thick blanket thrown around one's shoulders, and a cup of heated spiced energon thrust into one's hands. Soothing. Soundwave stared steadily at him. Thoughts seemed to accompany the wave of calm emotions. He could almost hear Soundwave. He could hear Soundwave.
"Bond: will soon be complete. Disengaging now: potentially fatal." he sounded monotone even in Shockwave's mind.
Soundwave concentrated on sending warm and pleasant, calming emotions through the growing bond to his confused and upset new bondmate. He should have realized how unprepared Shockwave would be for the bonding experience: for a solitary mech who thought in a clear, linear fashion and sought logical comprehension of everything. To lose his very ability to think as he always had, even if temporarily, would be unusually upsetting.
"Sending feelings, thoughts, memories: speeds formation of bond." Soundwave said.
He was straining his own formidable mental skills to keep memories and real-time thoughts from slipping through the bond to Shockwave and further overwhelming him.
"Suggestion: cease attempts to understand bonding process, concentrate efforts on mutual exchange of energy and data.
Shockwave could only emphasize his bafflement through the thickening bond (and how did one *do that*? It felt like pushing something, as if his mind or spark was shoving the emotion into Soundwave).
"If experience intolerable, only logical response to end it as quickly as possible." Soundwave reminded him. An appeal to logic usually worked well with Shockwave—so long as one were correct.
Shockwave could not conceive of not trying to understand, to learn more, about any unknown process he witnessed, but he could recognize that Soundwave was correct. As it stood he could barely withstand the onslaught, and his chances of reaching a significant breakthrough in understanding the bonding process during his own personal bonding experience were extremely low. Even worse, the data would be tainted by bias and fundamentally flawed.
Repeating that to himself once (any further repetitions would have diminishing returns and be pointless) he cycled his vents (core temperature had skyrocketed) and cautiously sent his sense of agreement through to Soundwave (he would not try to understand it; he would not.)
Soundwave sent warm encouragement pulsing back, and Shockwave tried to ignore that he could simultaneously both feel the action of sending the emotion as well as that of him receiving it. Feeling a little more in control, he decided to risk stepping up the intensity by progressing to memory exchange once more. What would be the most advantageous memories to share? Since the symbionts ranked very highly in his new mate's priorities, and thus now much higher in his own, it would behoove him to collect more data on them. He focused on that sense of inquiry about them, expecting Soundwave to pick up on it. After all, Soundwave could read his thoughts even without a bond, a useful skill that Shockwave was happy to have more readily at his disposal.
Soundwave did receive the thought, and was pleased with it. His symbionts were his pride and joy after all. Details about his beloved creations were only withheld from others for their own safety. Otherwise he would have kept a strip of holovids with him, happy to show any stranger their sparkling photos. Wasn't little Laserbeak just adorable, taking her first durillium dust bath?
He sent a memory of that washing across the bond, and the significance of it mystified Shockwave. He supposed it was an important step to independence and life stage growth? His single optic blinked in confusion. There was more that Soundwave was pressing through the bond. An odd energy passed through it, a feeling of emotions that seemed alien and independent from the mech who's spark was pressed into his. It felt like watchfulness, an alert, searching sensation. The dim, lonely room illuminated by sparkglow faded from his view and in its place he could see the bright, hot light outside, eliminating shadows on the ground far below, where only his own (?!) small shadow of outstretched wings darkened the ground.
A dusty wind blew through the native fauna, and sent his feather platelets ruffling pleasantly. And then he was back in the room, the red glow of Soundwave's visor staring at him in concern. He could feel it in Soundwave's spark, worry that he had pushed too far.
Shockwave sent negation. He was pleased, no matter how disconcertingly strange the experience was. The potential there was extremely high. The possibilities!
"Shockwave: will meet all symbionts eventually." Soundwave said.
Shockwave knew what he meant: he would eventually meet all the symbionts mind-to-mind, through the bond they all shared with Soundwave.
There wasn't time now. Shockwave could feel the wet warm liquid pooling beneath his aft, lubricants leaking from his hot tingling valve, and from Soundwave's above his. Their sparks were pulsing quicker now, the "pleasure" waves more intense. Shockwave supposed that it was what mechs called pleasurable, that it was the sensations that mechs sought in interface. To him it was just an odd kind of pressure and physical changes, of different rates of intensity.
His body seemed to instinctively crave an increase an intensity, which would eventually lead to overload, but it meant nothing to Shockwave. He sensed no significant interest in the sexual arousal coursing through their bodies from Soundwave. He knew that the mech he'd chosen as his bondmate seemed to be similarly disinclined to recreational sex, but was it the same for him? Curious, he formulated his thoughts into a cohesive logical inquiry, and pushed it to Soundwave.
It was not the same. But it was very similar. Soundwave was as indifferent to sexual desire as Shockwave was, but he sent across the bond his greater affection for interfacing. It seemed he was capable of deriving enjoyment from the act in the form of appreciating the pleasure he induced in his partner. Memories of Soundwave driving his occasional rare partner to screaming overload floated across the bond. Strangely, Soundwave seemed to be enjoying himself in those memories, instead of feeling irritation at the pointless waste of time. Perhaps his bondmate's telepathy was the differentiating factor, or his higher social-emotional needs.
"Interfacing: also needed to create symbionts." Soundwave said, his voice staticky.
"Indeed. If being used for its original purpose, procreation, it is not a waste of time." Shockwave agreed.
If Soundwave responded aloud, he didn't hear it, for Shockwave was lost in a blur of shared memories as a particularly powerful wave of spark energy coursed into his own core. He tried to maintain coherency but all thought seemed to be lost as his spark thrummed too loudly to ignore. Above him he heard Soundwave cry out, as his mate seemed to be experiencing similar waves of intensity.
As his optic stuttered out and everything faded to darkness, he seemed to feel something clicking into place inside his mind, like a padlock snapping home and securing a door to its frame, forever.
~
The door panels snapped open, responding to Shockwave's own entry code. How Frenzy had gotten that, Soundwave did not know. He had thought that knowledge carefully sequestered in his own mind. He supposed it didn't matter; there were few systems that could keep his symbionts out.
"Wow, you really smoked Cyclop's circuits, didn't ya?"
Soundwave did not look up from where he was draping a cooling blanket around his bondmate's smoking chassis. He would not encourage such crassness by agreeing, but he had never had a partner overload so strongly as to literally catch on fire.
Frenzy was making gagging noises at the sight of Shockwave's still cracked open chestplates, where his spark now pulsed peacefully and evenly.
"Close that up, will ya? Ychhh."
Soundwave leveled a short, disapproving stare at his young offspring (maybe no one else could tell, but his symbionts could definitely read his expressions) and then gently and almost reverently closed his sparkmate's chestplates.
Frenzy groaned. "I can't believe this. Married...to One-Eye!"
"Frenzy: currently stationed on repair duty in quadrant four." Soundwave said.
He stood up from the berth.
"Please tell me you're not goin' to be banging sparks every day!" Frenzy begged.
"Frenzy, must return to work." Soundwave said. He knelt down to be at eye level with his symbiont.
Bonding, bringing a new family member in, was a momentous occasion and some upset and irregularity in schedule could be excused. But they could not falter in their duty to Lord Megatron, in their devotion to the Cause. He laid one hand gently on Frenzy's shoulder, pulling the mech toward him and out of his rant.
"Okay, alright. But you gotta promise me one thing." Frenzy said.
"Promise: will be made if feasible." Soundwave said. He was curious what was in his symbiont's mind: he had already cemented the bond to Shockwave and it could not be undone. Frenzy's big red eyes looked up at him beseechingly.
"No, absolutely no, pet names. Please?" Frenzy begged.
Beneath his battlemask, his mouth curved up in a smile. "No pet names." Soundwave agreed. He stood up and headed towards the door, Frenzy following.
"Great!" Frenzy said. "So if I hear you calling him 'Shockykins' or 'my big purple love blaster' we're done. Rumble can take his piledrivers to your fraggin' processor if that starts-"
The door swooshed shut behind them, leaving a still-smoking Shockwave on the berth behind them, big purple aft beginning to stick to the berth from the drying lubricants.