Archive of Our Own

"Okay, you can drop the net!"

There's a slight pause. Then, a dull, unceremonious thwump sound from the sand behind him. When he turns, he's met with the sight of a whole, rolled up net still in its securing straps, lying innocently on the ground.

"... the end of the net." Tailgate says into his comm, looking up. At the top of the cliff, his coworker gives a shrug, unbothered.

"Should've specified."

He bites back a sigh. He’d had a feeling the job wasn’t going to end up being as smooth as it should have been the moment he’d been told who his replacement partner would be, but it doesn’t make his assumption being proven correct any less upsetting. “It’s fine. Just hold onto the next one, okay?” Tailgate tries, reminding himself he doesn’t need to call up and resisting the urge to yell into Getaway’s commlink anyway.

“Fine.” Getaway does as asked this time, holding onto the top end of the net and unfurling it with a flick. The bottom end hits the ground with a much softer thwap, and Tailgate is careful to follow whichever horizontal direction his coworker starts to unfold it toward next, disinclined to decide for them both. “I still don’t get the point of this, though.”

“It’s an important part of shore maintenance, remember? That’s… that’s why we’re here. The cliff would erode into the ocean, otherwise.”

Getaway scoffs. “Yeah, I know. It’s our job. I just don’t get how much a piddly little net is supposed to help with that.”

He knows better. But the explanation is practically reactionary at this point, ingrained in him both through repetition and his own fond interest of it. “Well, the net is more like a patch. It holds the cliff stable until the rust sea itself can catalyze it solid, along with collecting small particles, like flakes of iron oxide, to form a thicker shell around the cliff over time—” He’s interrupted, with a yelp, by a significantly sized chunk of rock breaking free and tumbling toward him. It’s only with a clumsy backward stumble that he’s able to avoid getting hit by it.

In his comm, there’s a cut off sound that might have been a laugh, but he can’t be sure. “Oops. My pede slipped.” Getaway offers, tone flat. This time, Tailgate does sigh, silently lamenting the fact Getaway is only his assigned partner on this job because Whirl is currently in jail. Again.

“Let’s just… get this done.”

It’s hard not to miss Whirl more with each passing minute. Even as they lapse into a neutral, focused silence, Getaway’s actions are lagged and reluctant and make the task of anchoring a single net take more than twice the amount of time it usually would. And the silence itself, while preferable to Getaway’s inherently abrasive nature every time he opens his mouth, also only serves to remind him how much his usual partner passes the time with anything and everything that crosses his mind.

Here, the silence is stifling, and awkward. What would normally be a pleasant ambience of the gentle waves in the distance instead does nothing to distract him from the hanging tension, and the internal debate about whether he should attempt small talk or not. Somehow, he has a suspicion it wouldn’t help.

While Tailgate is tapping his last anchor into the rock, he’s startled by Getaway being the first to break the silence. “I’m taking my break.” He decides, suddenly, and doesn’t seem to waste any more time before turning to leave, as evidenced by the gravel that tumbles down in his wake barely after he’s finished speaking.

“We’ve barely started—?” Tailgate fumbles his hammer, glancing up in time to see Getaway’s dismissively waving servo disappear from sight.

“I can take it whenever I want. Be back in thirty, you can keep doing whatever without me.”

There’s a distinctive click that means Getaway has physically disabled his comm, leaving the minibot well and truly on his own until he decides to return. “But we’re supposed to take them together.” Tailgate can’t help but mumble to himself, staring up at the sheer cliff faces that he can’t work on without a partner. It might be company mandated for safety, but the task is just about impossible with only one mech to begin with, anyway.

Since only one mech can’t work alone, they’re encouraged to take their breaks together, and that’s always worked best in Tailgate’s opinion. Inevitably, at some point, Whirl will go from standing atop the cliff to leaning over him seemingly the next second, wheedling about lunch and company time, yet never forcing the issue if Tailgate wants to complete a task first. It’s a banter he’s gotten used to, and feels empty without it, standing alone on the dry part of the shore with no one around.

There’s nothing else he can do. Tossing down his tools for later, Tailgate turns, trudging along the foot of the cliff. He doesn’t really feel like leaving the site, especially not for fuel right now, though he doesn’t have anywhere else he needs, or really should, be. So he wanders; arguably to scout the state of the cliffs further down the beach, but really, it’s just for the sake of doing something.

A decent walk away, but still within sight of their first net, there’s a standing arch of rock. The cliff extends out over the water, seemingly holding strong on its pillar of stone against the waves, and creating just a small section of rock that can be walked under. He eyes it for structural integrity as he goes, peering through the shadowed underside for fracture lines.

It’s solid, and nothing less than a marvel to look at as he makes his way out to the other side. The plants here have done the job of the nets elsewhere, holding fast to the terrain and keeping it secure against the pull of the ocean. Tracing the meandering path of one silvery vine down the pillar’s height to the rock and sand below, Tailgate’s gaze meets red optics at the bottom, staring back at him.

For the second time today, Tailgate flails backwards with a yelp. This time, he lands on his aft in—thankfully, dry—sand, from where he can stare at the scene in front of him in an attempt to understand what he’s looking at. At the base of the pillar, curled up tight in the spaces between rocks and only visible from the shadows by the bright purple plating, is a mech.

He’s staring back at Tailgate. Silent and frozen as still as the rocks around him, the mech’s optics track his every movement as Tailgate pushes himself back up off the ground, but doesn’t say a word. “Um… hello?” Tailgate offers, the sound stretching into silence as it doesn’t even earn him a blink of acknowledgement.

Only that continued stare. Frozen, unmoving, it’s only as Tailgate looks closer in an attempt to understand what the deal is here that he spots the water pooled around the other mech’s lower half, and jolts accordingly.

“Oh! You probably shouldn’t be in there, I mean, maybe you’re equipped for it, but if you’re not…” Concern and the fluttery feeling of directionless panic try to rise in him equally as he flits closer, servos raised in a jittery search for what he can do to help. There must be some kind of basin created from the rocks here, filled with the opaque oxide-red water the rust sea is known for, and obscuring the strange mech’s entire bottom half under the surface. “Are you okay? Do you know where you are?”

He reaches out, tentatively, and finally nets some kind of a reaction. The mech thrashes, wrenching away from him with a low growl, and presses himself harder against the rock behind him. Tailgate identifies it immediately as a defensive, cornered kind of fear; the kind where he must feel unsafe, and has nothing left but aggression to protect himself.

Which is… strange. Why would he be sitting here in this pool of water, acting like he doesn’t have anywhere to go? Gaze trailing, Tailgate catches sight of deep claw gouges pockmarking the stone everywhere within reach of the mech, and the way he seems to be straining away from the lower half of his own frame.

The realization strikes him. “You’re stuck.” He breathes, glancing back to the other mech’s face with newfound understanding of his situation. While it doesn’t explain everything, like how he even got here to begin with, being trapped makes his apparent fear that much more understandable. Although, now that he considers it, since the mech isn’t responding to him, it’s possible that— “Can you… understand me? At all?”

All he gets is a blank stare.

“Oh, no. Okay, uh… Okay. You can do this Tailgate, just… make him understand without words?” He meets that blank stare with his own, glances at the water, and then back to the stare. “How do I explain this without words?!”

The only thing he really can do, as best he can figure, is to just move slowly and hope the other humors him long enough to understand his intentions. It’s not a great plan; the scratch marks in that rock are not something he wants to end up with in his plating, but he can’t very well just not help him. Slowly, he reaches out again, meeting the other’s warning stare with as much calm gentleness as he can muster.

Uh… hopefully he can read visor mechs. Tailgate really, really hopes he can read visor mechs.

When his servo is arguably in the purple mech’s personal space, he gets another low growl in warning, and responds in kind with murmured reassurances. They might not share a language, or maybe this guy is just in such distress that he’s lost the ability at the moment, but his tone of voice should convey enough in its stead. It seems to work, based on the growls going quiet and Tailgate managing to, without anyone making any sudden movements or putting claws through anyone else, lay his servo on purple plating.

“There, see? Not a threat.” He almost laughs with relief, but he doesn’t really want to test his luck. His mysterious companion does seem to have relaxed, at least a little, since he stops pressing himself against the rock quite as hard. That, though, combined with the newfound proximity, makes it very clear he’d initially glossed over just how big this mech is. Now that he’s looking, his servo on the other’s forearm plating is… comically tiny. He’s bigger than Getaway. He’s bigger than Whirl.

If he wasn’t currently curled in on himself and half submerged, Tailgate might think he was bigger than Ultra Magnus. He still could be, but, well, submerged. It makes him wonder if this mech’s name might have something to do with his size, like the aforementioned largest mech Tailgate knows, which also serves to make him realize he has no way of finding out who this actually is. “Um… You wouldn’t happen to be able to tell me your name, would you?” He asks, hoping.

It earns him a blank look.

“Yeah, I… yeah. Thought so.” Looking up and down, Tailgate stares at the vivid purple plating still resting quietly under his much paler servo. It feels a little odd, but until he can find out who this mech is, well. He looks back up. “Can I just call you ‘Purple’ for now?”

The mech blinks at him.

“I’m… going to take that as a yes. Okay, Purple. I’m gonna try to help you now, okay?” With a gentle tap to telegraph his intentions better than non-understood speech, and a steadying vent in for himself, Tailgate plunges a servo into the water. It’s cold, though luckily that’s the only sensation he feels from it immediately. Without knowing how long he can stay in contact with it he moves as quickly as he dares, finding and following the line of where rock meets plating.

At first, there’s nothing that would prevent an escape from the basin. The rock edges are smooth and he doesn’t seem to be wedged in place, but that doesn’t stay true for long. Any warning that Tailgate is about to find the source of the other mech’s struggling comes in the form of a low, warning hiss, one that he placates with the same methods as before. Once there’s quiet between them again, he continues on.

It feels like a piece of… metal? Maybe buried in the rock, but rigid and unmoving when he presses against it regardless. Following the edge of it leads him up, until he once again bumps into displaced plating and the metal continues without him.

Oh, no.

“Okay. Okay. Okay, good to know, energon isn’t visible in rust sea water. Primus, how much have you lost? How long have you been here?” He’s rambling, but it helps. The purple mech tilts his head, listening. “No, don’t answer that, you don’t know what I’m saying. Okay, I… Oh, this isn’t gonna be fun. We’re both going to hate this.”

Digging around in his subspace, it’s an afterthought that he’s probably getting water into it. He’ll deal with that later. For now, he’s glad to bump into a medkit he was pretty sure he’d shoved in there at some point, but he can’t use that until he’s freed Purple from the piece of metal he’s quite literally impaled on. No, right now he’s looking for the tool Whirl shoved in there without asking, saying something about how it’s better to have it than not in case he ever needs it.

Well. Turns out Whirl is better at thinking ahead than he lets on.

Tailgate has never been more glad in his functioning than he is when he finds it. It’s a small, oscillating blade, but more importantly it’s made for metal and rated for use in water. With a mental note to thank Whirl later, he plunges both servos back under the surface, searching for the metal in question.

When he finds it, he hesitates, looking up. Purple is still watching him. “This is… going to hurt, okay? I’m sorry.” He warns, even though he knows it doesn’t do any good when the other mech can’t understand him. Before he can hesitate any longer, he turns it on, and touches the blade to the metal.

The reaction is instant. The mech wrenches in a full frame flinch, despite Tailgate’s attempt to mitigate the worst of the vibrations by holding the metal closest to him in his servo. Then there’s a snarl, a loud and deep sound full of intent, and he feels the prick of claws against his lines as they curl around his neck.

It’s terrifying, but considering the circumstances, perfectly reasonable. He keeps the blade going; the sooner he finishes this, the sooner they’ll both be much happier, but since he can’t see what he’s doing through the haze of the water anyway, he looks up.

Red optics glower at him, pulsing weakly with a light that could betray pain or low energon, there’s no way to be sure which it is. Both, maybe. The claws tighten a fraction, almost like a warning, pressing just hard enough to make him aware of the energon in his own lines.

“It’s okay. I know, I’m sorry.” Tailgate offers, falling back into the murmured platitudes even as he feels the claws grip tighter. He holds eye contact, once again hoping this mech can read visors, almost as much as he’s hoping for the metal to just give already.

Something does give; but it’s not the metal.

And it’s not his own lines, either.

The grip slackens, and the claws fall away. He’s still cutting at the metal, still jostling the wound, but the other mech leans away from him and the threat of retaliation vanishes. His expression changes some, too. It’s still stiff from pain, but he’s lacking that ‘cornered wild animal’ look he’s held up until now. Instead, he just watches, like he’s more curious than he is afraid.

That’s especially good because if he’s being honest with himself, Tailgate isn’t sure how much more he could have handled. He’s feeling the water, now, the first servo he’d submerged under is thrumming with the beginnings of an unnatural heat, one that already tells him he’s going to be paying for this. Part of him wants to hope that he makes it through the offending object already, but the rest of him knows he’s far past being able to hope the exposure wasn’t enough to take effect, anyway.

His own state aside, the metal finally gives. He feels the moment it shifts, the blade making it through and jarring the piece still impaled into the other mech enough that it makes him grunt, but otherwise doesn’t react.

“Okay, I can’t look at it until you…” Tailgate starts as he pulls himself out of the water, only to remember that Purple can’t understand him anyway. “...Right. Hm.”

Gesturing doesn’t seem to work. Stepping back and waving his servos in a go this way motion doesn’t net him anything more than another of those flat, watchful stares. Lost for any other way of saying what he wants, he returns, reaching out for a handful of purple claws and giving a gentle tug toward the beach.

Somehow that does get the idea across. Purple pulls out of Tailgate’s grip, and plants his servos on the rock before hauling himself out of the pool with only his own upper body strength, for the first time revealing the rest of his frame that had been obscured by the rust water.

Tailgate stares, intake hanging open behind his mask and vocalizer rendered mute with awe. He is bigger than Ultra Magnus. Less broad, but ridiculously tall from Tailgate’s perspective, towering over him and dripping toxic water with loud pitter patter sounds onto the sand far below.

Taking in the sight of him, his plating is… unfamiliarly unique. It has curves and ridges unlike any other mech he’s ever seen, and now that he isn’t curled in on himself, Tailgate can see that the impalement wound isn’t the only injury he has. On the side he'd turned away and hidden against the cliff, there’s deep scratches gouging through his abdominal plating, sluggishly bleeding thick energon. Said impalement is further down, the metal shoved up under and displacing a piece of leg plating uncomfortably, and—

Tailgate cycles his optics.

This mech doesn’t have legs.

His torso just seems to continue, repeating abdominal plating in smaller and smaller increments with each layer down. As Tailgate stares, trying to comprehend what’s going on here, Purple reaches for a rocky outcropping and pulls himself the rest of the way out of the pool, heaving a mass of soft, silvery silicone that smacks onto the ground with a wet thwap.

It’s a tail. He doesn’t have legs, he has a tail. He came out of the water, he doesn’t have legs, and he has a tail. Tailgate feels like he’s just had a power surge through his processor. This is— this is—

“You’re a—” His vocalizer glitches, pitching up and then harshly down, as the unfamiliar word he only knows from Whirl’s favorite shows falls out of his processor with the thud of a vending machine item. “—Mer? Mech? Mermech?”

The mech—mer?—doesn’t answer him, of course. He pulls himself fully free of the water and out onto the sand, moving his massive frame and the tail attached to it with nothing but his arms like it’s easy. The silicone of his fin swishes back and forth as he goes, leaving deep yet delicate furrows in the sand behind him, masking the trail left by his body.

Tailgate shakes the compounding list of errors from his processor. This changes things; now, he’s out in the open on a publicly available—though closed for cliff instability—beach with a creature he didn’t know existed yesterday. They don’t share a language, said creature is injured, and— oh, Primus, he forgot about Getaway.

His chrono tells him that Getaway should have been back sometime ago, which means he could show up at any moment. Which means the longer they’re out here, in the open in plain sight, the more their chances of discovery are. He doesn’t doubt that Getaway would immediately sound the alarm on the existence of an actual, real ocean mech, just as much as he’s certain falling into the hands of scientists would be one of the worst fates Purple could possibly be subjected to.

There’s a reason he must be on this beach instead of the ocean, though, and Tailgate has a suspicion that has something to do with the obvious claw marks on his side. He must’ve come up onto land to avoid whatever was attacking him, and in the process, ended up in the situation Tailgate found him in. Now he’s worse off than he would have been at the start, and he likely can’t go back in the water yet for the same reason he left it.

This is bad.

“Okay.” Tailgate decides, pulling himself out of pacing he hadn’t noticed he’d fallen into. The mer, still in the sand and sitting upright to keep his stab wound away from the ground, seems to have been quietly watching him. “We just… have to find somewhere for you to hide. And then, I go back to my shift, and… and then… I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

He looks around, scanning the beach. It’s mostly open, and with a few too many unstable sections to be comfortable. The spot under the stone arch doesn’t lead deeper into anything, but when he keeps looking, squinting at the base of the cliff further down the other direction, the shadows deepen enough that it might be… Well, he can’t just leave his new friend here alone to go check it out, and it’s the only option anyway. Tailgate turns, facing the other mech again.

There stands the issue of whether or not to remove the remaining bar of metal from him before making him pull himself all that way across the beach, but— Tailgate is no medic, but he’s sure that removing it now and then moving that far would have a less than ideal impact on Purple’s remaining energon levels, whatever they are. Decided, he reaches out, holding his servos open and grasping gently in the mer’s general direction. “Come with me?”

Without an ounce of comprehension in his optics, Purple takes his servo in those massive claws, his touch impossibly gentle. The way he’s looking back at him, attentive and searching, Tailgate could start to believe that Purple is trying just as hard to understand him as he is trying to communicate. Turning, Tailgate points towards the shadows he hopes lead to a cave at the base of the cliff, and looks back at the mer.

“We need to go over there, okay?”

Purple seems to listen, optics following where Tailgate is pointing to, before looking back and considering him. His head tilts one way, and then the other, dropping Tailgate’s servo and shaking himself in a way that ruffles his plating.

Tailgate has no clue what that could mean.

But the next part he does understand. With a low, deep sound that could only be described as a chirp, the mech plants his claws back onto the sand and bodily hauls himself an impressive distance forward; seemingly entirely unhindered by his injuries, as well as swerving around Tailgate with a level of grace that feels strange from a sea creature on land. As massive as he is, and as far as he hauls himself with each pull of his only limbs and the slide of momentum he has on the sand, Tailgate practically has to jog to keep up with him as he goes directly where indicated.

They’re lucky. The shadows he’d seen are a cave, and Purple glances at Tailgate as if for confirmation before hauling himself right into it. Tailgate is quick to follow, pleased to find the space is comfortably large, but shaped in a way that even right at the mouth of the cave it’s hard to see exactly what’s inside. What’s more, there’s a low point in the floor that must have gathered water during high tide, a pool that his new friend wastes no time in flinging himself into.

Which is… lovely. The uncomfortable warmth up both of his arms to the elbow joint has progressed to an incessant burning sensation, along with a prickling itch dancing underneath his mesh. It makes Tailgate hesitate to get anywhere near the rust sea water again anytime soon, but he supposes the exposure has already happened, so there’s not much further harm until he gets it fixed, anyway.

Retrieving his medkit at long last, Tailgate beckons the mer. The pool is relatively large, giving Purple space to unfurl and stretch out and even paddle in a circle if he so pleases, but he doesn’t hesitate to return to where Tailgate is standing at the edge. He pulls himself out of the water, leaving his tail submerged, and looks down at Tailgate quietly.

With his size and the location of his injuries, they’re only just below Tailgate’s line of sight here. It’s darker in the cave than it was in the shade, but he can get a closer look now. The side of the mer that is currently exposed to him is the one with the slash marks, ones that he can now see go right through his plating and cut into the protoform underneath. They’re still sluggishly dripping energon, though if he didn’t know from the faint glow of the substance, he’d think it was something else entirely. The energon bleeding out of Purple is disconcertingly thick, with a multicolored, oily sheen on its surface as it beads down.

It makes him wonder where their similarities begin and end. They both use energon, he’s certain of that much, but process it much differently. Unless it’s in a different form to begin with, wherever it is Purple is getting it from underwater, though he’s pretty sure if that was the case it would gum up his own systems and they would, technically, use a different fuel then.

That, along with the fact that Purple lives in a substance that is currently eating through Tailgate’s own plating, makes him decide that it would be better to test any substances before just assuming they’ll be safe for the mer just because they are for him.

“So I need to clean your wounds.” He tells the other, ruffling through his medkit. He can feel that large presence looming over his shoulder as he does, watching what he’s doing. Once he’s found what he was looking for, he holds it up, showing it to his captive audience. “This is disinfecting solvent.”

Purple looks between him and the bottle before, slowly, reaching for it. Tailgate lets him take it, prepared for the possibility of him accidentally puncturing it with those claws, or squeezing it just a bit too tightly with his size. What he’s not prepared for is for the mech to turn it this way and that, looking it over in a way that betrays his unfamiliarity with the object, only to zero in on the lid and smoothly twist it off. Even less, when he brings it to his face and sniffs the contents, only for a look of recognition to cross his face.

“You know what this is?”

Tailgate is sure the incredulity in his tone translates, because the mer chirps at him and taps on his own plating near his wounds. Then he hands the bottle back over and twists, raising his arm out of the way to give Tailgate better clearance to the slash marks.

Baffled by the idea that, somehow, liquid solvents exist somewhere in the ocean in a large enough capacity to be recognized by the literal fish mech in front of him, Tailgate really just goes through the motions without any mind as he drenches a mesh cloth in the solvent. Though, that’s just the nature of the beast when it comes to having one’s day interrupted by finding out said fish mech exists in the first place, he supposes. Is it really that much more odd that he would recognize disinfectant?

Shaking the thoughts off, he returns focus to the task at hand. Purple stretches his torso, leaning away to expose as much of the slashes as possible, and only gives a slight wince at the burn of the solvent as Tailgate begins dabbing away at the thick energon. It comes away easily enough, though he doesn’t quite have enough solvent or mesh cloths to clean away all of it with the way it spreads like a dense grease, considering he’s only halfway through the first cut by the time he’s run out of usable space on his cloth.

With a sigh, he dunks it into the water, cringing at the sensation of it burning against his plating the moment he touches it this time around. At least rust infections aren’t the worst thing in the world, but he can already hear Whirl teasing him for being the one to get a stupid, entirely preventable injury this time.

Above him, Purple seems to notice the way he wrenches his servo out of the water the moment the cloth is maybe clean enough. He twists, leaning into Tailgate’s space, looking him over curiously and then taking said wet servo into his large claws. Just like the bottle, he turns it back and forth, poking at the cloth, then plucking it out of Tailgate’s grip with one servo while using the other to continue investigating his fingers.

But the consequences of his exposure to the water haven’t become visual yet, so there’s nothing for him to find. The mer seems intent on finding out what the matter is, though, leaning closer with a low grumble that sounds curious as he continues looking.

“I can’t really touch this water like you can.” It occurs to him, based on the reactions he’s gotten so far, that he might actually be able to communicate better than he has been if he were to use more gestures until he finds ones that translate. With that in mind, Tailgate taps himself on the chassis, points at the water, and shakes his head.

It gets him another one of those sharp, focused stares. The kind that makes him feel like the other is trying just as hard to understand him as he is trying to be understood. It’s encouraging, but the look of attentiveness, combined with the way the mer seems to be searching his face for more, tells him the point of what he was trying to say didn’t quite get across.

Slowly, he points at the water, then Purple’s own wounds, and finally himself with another tap on his plating. This time, he can see the realization dawn in those red optics. Almost in the same instant, Purple lets go of his servo, retreating still-wet claws back into his own space as if burned.

It is… unreasonably charming. This mech before him could, at first glance, reasonably be assumed to just be some kind of wild animal, but the longer he’s paying attention, the more Purple shows how much more he is than that. Especially now; in the wake of the mer letting go of him, Tailgate now gets to watch as he turns toward the water and leans down, thoroughly washing out the cloth himself. And then, after that, just how much time and effort he puts into wringing it as dry as possible before, ever so tentatively, offering it back to Tailgate.

Maybe it’s a reasonable amount of charming, actually. Maybe it’s Purple relaxing more, maybe it’s just Tailgate beginning to look closer, but he can just recognize the hint of apologetic hopefulness in the other’s expression, despite the way his face as a whole seems to just always look a little bit standoffish. He can feel Purple watching him as he takes the cloth, and despite being damp with water still, it’s not enough to burn like submerging his servo did.

“This… this helps. Thank you.” Tailgate doesn’t have any way of knowing if it’s his words or his tone that get the message across, but a soft gurgling that sounds like a drowned engine tells him it’s been received regardless. Something about it makes him feel warm, a soft, fuzzy feeling he isn’t used to anyone causing but Whirl.

They fall into a rhythm. Tailgate dabs gently at the slash marks until his cloth is more energon than it is mesh, and the mer takes it from him, cleaning it thoroughly and squeezing the water out of it even more thoroughly before giving it back and the cycle repeats. It only takes a few rounds of this until he’s able to smooth a patch over top of the injury, watching Purple poke and prod at the foreign object curiously. He deems it acceptable, repeating that same drowned engine noise at Tailgate as he twists around again to bare his other side for the same treatment.

It was only a short time ago that this mech in front of him had lashed out in defense when Tailgate had started to cut through the metal still jutting out of him; now, that very same mech offers the wound openly, relaxed on the floor despite his vulnerable position and a calm trust shining in his optics.

Setting both servos on the bar delicately, Tailgate meets his gaze. “Are you ready? I can’t really… make this any less unpleasant.” A slow blink and a low, drawn out sound are his answer, which he can only really take as agreement.

Tailgate pulls the bar with measured conviction. Too slow will make it hurt more, just as much as too fast could cause extra damage accidentally. Besides the metal cutting, Purple’s reactions have all been exceedingly mild for the state of his injuries, a testament to just how high his pain tolerance must be, or at least, his ability to hide it. If Tailgate had even just one cut like one of those slashes in his side, he’d be on the ground deciding he’s dead, instead of dragging himself around on the sand and cleaning mesh cloths.

As the bar comes free, the mer makes a wheezing, strangled cry, claws piercing into the stone below him. His whole frame shudders like it’s been glitched, aimless convulsions stemming from a level of pain his components don’t know how to react to.

In the holes he’s made in the rock, his claws rattle. Trembling.

Servos hovering over him, Tailgate hesitates. There’s nothing he can do for the pain, he isn’t a medic; and that’s without even considering the possibility that Purple may have entirely alien pain receptors, anyway. But the fact remains that right now, he’s suffering through the initial, worst part of it, and Tailgate wishes there was something he could do.

The mer watches him through dim optics even as he shivers on the ground. The tension of the moment draws long between them until, finally, it snaps with the scrape of claws on stone. Purple reaches for him, and despite how his servo is shaking, his grip is still impossibly strong as he wraps it around Tailgate’s back and pulls him close.

He isn’t entirely dry from his stint in the pool, but Tailgate can’t find it in himself to mind considering what the other is currently dealing with. In an instant, he finds himself buried within a mass of purple plating, arms curled around him and holding him tightly. Face pressed tightly against Tailgate’s shoulder, Purple’s vents come out harsh and uneven over him, prompting him to reach up and search for somewhere he can rub soothingly.

His grip lands on the mer’s impressive horns, fingertips finding and rubbing the place where they jut out of his helm. It works like he’d hoped it would; Purple melts against him, vents evening out as he finally relaxes.

“Sorry I’m not a medic, Purple.” Tailgate murmurs, continuing his ministrations softly. “This would be a lot more comfortable for you if I was.”

There’s a faint grumble against his plating in response. It might’ve been something in a language he can’t understand, or it might’ve just been a wordless sound of protest. He’s not sure what he’s protesting, though, and the sound doesn’t repeat.

It’s now far past the time Getaway should’ve returned, but Tailgate is fine with that. It’s a blessing in disguise, really, considering if he had shown up when he said he would’ve, he may very well have caught them and found out about Purple outright. As it stands, he’s starting to think his partner has shirked the entire rest of his shift, which thankfully opens him up to the opportunity to fully patch all of the mer’s wounds and, if his luck holds out, to find him some energon as well.

Here’s hoping he can drink the kind they have here. If not, well… well, he’ll figure that out if it comes to it.

For now, he’s perfectly content to let Purple cope with his impalement injury by clinging to him. It seems to have helped; or, at the very least, helped him feel safe enough to properly relax. Tailgate can only imagine the stress he was under, out in the open in an unfamiliar place, trapped and having just sustained the injury. He wonders how long it was from then until Tailgate stumbled across him.

Forcibly, he does not think about what could have happened to him if today had gone any differently.

Soon after he deletes that thought tree from his processor, the mer stirs. He hadn’t fallen asleep, Tailgate is pretty certain, but he had gone still and content, winding down from the adrenaline and pain. Now, Purple lets out what sounds like a reluctant huff, and pulls away, releasing Tailgate from his grip.

“Feeling better?” The response he gets is another low, drowned engine noise and a gentle bonk of Purple’s head against his. He has no clue what that means.

The mer’s optics are brighter again, though, which is a good sign that the worst of his initial pain has passed. He twists himself again, leaning down and exposing his remaining injury back to Tailgate.

It… looks awful. Secretly, he’s thankful for all the times Whirl has gotten himself into increasingly disconcerting damage, or else Tailgate might not have had the steel to be the closest thing to a medic Purple has access to right now. Just like he’d assessed, the metal bar had gone under plating and into protoform underneath, leaving behind a gaping wound that drips more of that sludge-like energon in thick globs. “You are… so lucky that didn’t damage anything important.”

Purple’s response to that is to twist further; coiling himself up like a cheap hose, he’s long enough to leave the wound within Tailgate’s reach and still brace his arms on the floor, propping his chin in one servo and staring back at the minibot next to him. Tailgate has never seen a mech so flexible before, but then again, he’s never seen a mech without legs before, either.

“You know, good intentions or not,” Tailgate starts, feeling Purple’s gaze on him as he pulls packing gauze and more solvent from his kit and reaches toward the injury he had just irritated only minutes ago. “I don’t think I’d be letting anybody near me so soon if I were you. I mean, that looked like it hurt, I don’t think I’d want anyone touching it after that.”

Case in point, the mer just quietly watches him as he squeezes the bottle of solvent, doing his best to wash away any extra particulates that might’ve lodged within the wound. It seems any chance of Purple registering him as any kind of a threat is long gone, even with the fact Tailgate keeps having to cause him pain to treat him. He just lounges in place, entirely unbothered by all of the poking and prodding.

The rest of the task goes by just as smoothly. Purple makes no fuss about having his open wound shoved full of packing gauze, though he does seem a little fascinated by the method of treatment if the way he watches the entire process with interest says anything. Once again, he also pokes and traces at the patch Tailgate sticks over top of it all, investigating the extent of it before dropping his attention elsewhere.

Elsewhere being Tailgate, and Purple’s massive fin. He hadn’t noticed the mer pulling it from the water, but it’s charitably dry as it curls and drapes around Tailgate, blanketing him in place. “Oh, can I..?” He starts to ask, only to be interrupted by the soft silicone being flicked right into his servos.

Soft, and seemingly delicate to the touch, Tailgate has a sneaking suspicion it’s much sturdier than it feels. The rest of his new friend’s frame is marred here and there by marks and scars, scratches and slight dents, though all of them are old and faded. His tailfin, however, shows nothing of the sort, betraying just how tough it must be.

That, or… or he’s just particularly protective and careful with it. In which case, he just willingly put it, literally, right into Tailgate’s servos. That thought leaves him with a feeling of awe, continuing to trace the edge of the fin with fascination.

“Where are you?”

Tailgate nearly jumps out of his own plating at the sound of Getaway’s voice, a cold jolt of startled fear ripping through his lines with a vengeance. Just as quickly, Purple lurches upright, a low, threatening growl rumbling out of him as he coils himself tighter around Tailgate. Red optics are pinned to the cave entrance, but when Tailgate looks there himself, there’s no one there.

“Hellooo? Shortstack? Don’t tell me you bailed.”

It’s just his comm. Getaway isn’t here; he hasn’t found the cave, and Purple didn’t see or hear him. It dawns on him that the mer wasn’t reacting to something he noticed, but reacted without hesitation to Tailgate getting startled. Now that he’s realized they’re still alone, and his spark is no longer flaring with the fear of being caught, Purple has also settled down from his defensive stance.

He’d really been hoping Getaway had shirked the rest of his shift. With a sigh, Tailgate opens the channel. “Hello, Getaway. I thought you went home.”

Getaway puts on a fake gasp. “You think I would just skip out on work? You wound me, truly. Besides, what’s your excuse? I don’t see you out here, either.”

Coiled around him and with his head resting on his crossed servos on the floor, Purple is watching Tailgate intently, unable to hear the conversation but clearly aware something is going on. Tailgate rubs the silicone fin still between his fingers. “Oh, nothing. I went exploring.”

“Exploring.” Getaway’s tone is flat; unimpressed. “Please tell me you were doing something actually useful while you went and played on the beach.”

As if he has any room to talk, but that’s not worth getting frustrated over. Purple’s claws nudge his servo, and he turns it over, allowing the mer to fidget with his fingers as he pleases. It’s a soothing sensation against the grating reminder of how difficult Getaway is, and simultaneously serves to remind Tailgate that he does have enough details from his initial walk to, hopefully, get his partner off his case.

“The degraded cliffs continue for maybe thirty nets worth before they arc out over the water, you might be able to see the pillar from there if you’re at the job site. We don’t need to do anything with that section, because the local vegetation has done the job for us, which is lucky because we’re not cleared for working directly over the water. On the other side, the beach opens up, so the cliff is far enough from the water that—”

To his immense satisfaction, Getaway finally cuts him off. “I get it, I get it, you’re a nerd for rocks. I don’t care, just get back here from whatever it is you’re wasting time on so I can go home.” His partner doesn’t wait for a response or an explanation, disappearing from his commlink with a click.

He’s not sure why it’s so much easier to field his antagonism now than it was only a few hours ago. There’s been only one change since then; a change that he now offers a visor smile to.

“I guess you’re kinda like my good luck charm, huh? Or my make-Getaway-more-bearable charm, same difference.” With a soft sigh of reluctance, Tailgate extricates himself from the pile of purple plating and fish tail, nudging Purple back toward his pool of water. “I have to go. I’ll be back in a few hours, and I’ll bring you back some energon, okay?”

Purple looks like he doesn’t want Tailgate to leave, but he also doesn’t look particularly confused. He drapes himself back into the water, claws slipping gently out of the grasp they’d had on Tailgate’s servo, and appears perfectly content to lounge right there. It helps reassure the slight fear he’d had that Purple might not understand not to follow him when it did come time to leave the cave, since it seems that fear is now largely unfounded.

As he makes his way back out onto the beach outside, he’s followed by a faint chirp that sounds almost like Purple is trying to say, “Okay.”

The rest of Tailgate’s shift was… rough. Though he didn’t have to worry about Purple, certain he was safe and secure in the cave, there were plenty of other things on his mind instead. Luckily, Getaway hadn’t cared to risk another long-winded explanation and hadn’t asked a single question about what Tailgate had spent the afternoon doing; at least, he hadn’t until the rust burns became visible.

He’d stared. And then his stare had raked up from Tailgate’s rust marked servos to his face, squinting at him like there was something more to be found here. And sure, that might be true, but that doesn’t mean Getaway needs to know about it. So Tailgate had lied, claiming he might’ve been a little careless in his explorations and tripped into the water. Whirl once told him a lie works best if it’s mixed with the truth, which led him to adding that he’d hoped the burns were minor enough they wouldn’t manifest and he wouldn’t have to explain what happened.

Getaway rolled his optics at him and said something about how this better not make him look bad on their job performance rating, and that, Tailgate hopes, will be the end of his questions. That was just the first thing, though. The second thing being that he hadn’t considered how miserable cliff work would turn out to be with rust crawling underneath every edge of his plating.

It’s a constant, lingering sensation, similar to the feeling of misaligned parts rubbing raw through mesh. It’s like there’s sandpaper on the underside of his plating, like a crawling burn that continues to burrow ever deeper. The relative ease he’s used to having in his job was thrown out the window at the chafing, grinding sensation he’d had to feel with every movement, every net they hung, and every tap of his hammer felt like it shook dying flakes of living metal off of him.

Suffice to say, his shift was uncomfortable. Usually, Tailgate enjoys nearly all aspects of his job, including the mindless repetition that allows his thoughts to wander freely most days. Turns out, that monotony is no longer enjoyable when the only direction his thoughts can wander in is towards the feeling of rusting through. And even after, though the city is a whole distraction of its own, running errands and filling his subspace with energon to bring back with him is only marginally more comfortable than hammering anchors into solid stone at the detriment of his flaking metal.

By the time Tailgate makes it back to the beach, it’s dark out. He’s never been out by the sea in the dark, and it’s a sight that, all at once, makes him forget the discomfort and the task at hand for just a moment. The sand shines a pale monochrome in the silver-blue light of the moon, while the sea itself has gone entirely dark. The opaque red of its rust contents lose their color in the dark half light, leaving the entire expanse of the horizon to appear as a flat, dark purple.

It’s peaceful. The view is uninterrupted by lights or structures, and there isn’t a sound to be heard beyond the crashing of waves. Tailgate knows, firsthand, what a terrible danger that water could be to anyone who isn’t equipped to handle it; and yet it continues to slosh gently against the rocks, deceptively harmless. At the same time, he also knows now, better than maybe anyone else alive, that there’s more to it, hidden somewhere beneath its surface.

Tailgate can barely see inside the cave. He isn’t equipped with infrared optics, and it’s nearly pitch black without the light of day bouncing in. There’s no need to see to know Purple is still here, though, not when there’s a splash and red optics appear out of the darkness like something that would, in any other scenario, spook him. “I’m back,” He calls out softly instead, taking slow steps forward, just in case mermechs happen to have short memories.

Purple greets him with a low rumble, distinct from his growls, and glowing red optics sway through the darkness with the sound of him pulling himself out of the pool. Carefully, Tailgate picks his way across the uneven terrain in the dark, seating himself on the rock near the pool in a place he can only hope is dry. He’s glad when the glow of the energon cubes he brought with him casts the faintest amount of light, illuminating the floor and bouncing off of his plating as he pulls them from subspace. Building the stack larger makes the glow stronger, and soon enough, he can just barely see the shine of Purple’s plating in the darkness, turned blue in the light of the energon.

“I don’t know if you can process this, but I really hope so.” Tailgate cracks open a cube for him, offering it for Purple to take. He does; purple claws comically huge as they clasp around it, and in the glow of its contents, Tailgate can see his face as he leans forward and sniffs the edge. There’s a flash of recognition in his optics, and then he tips his head back, draining the cube with fervor. “Huh. Guess that answers that, probably.”

The mer in front of him is ridiculously large. Tailgate had compensated as accordingly as he could with limited subspace, and he’s glad he did when Purple makes his way through a second, third, fourth cube. He must’ve watched closely when Tailgate opened the first one, because he copies the behavior as smoothly as if he’d been using cubes all his functioning.

It is genuinely impressive how fast Purple picks up on things that seem to be entirely new to him. Tailgate is relatively certain he would spend more time at least fumbling with things than Purple does, even if he did instantly understand the concept, but Purple makes them look easy.

The fifth cube makes Tailgate wonder again how long Purple might’ve been trapped there on the beach before he found him. Or even how long it had been since he’d fueled when that incident had happened in the first place, that maybe the claw marks on his side could’ve been from a scuffle over fuel themselves.

He doesn’t get to continue that thought, because in the very next moment, Purple has loomed out of the darkness towards him so closely it feels like he’s only millimeters away. The half empty cube in his claws appears forgotten as he fixates on Tailgate, staring with an intensity that makes Tailgate feel like he is the cube. He sees it get set aside in a rush that nearly causes it to tip over, and while it’s still wobbling on an uneven rock, claws brush his face.

They find the edge of his jaw and push, ever so gently, tipping Tailgate’s head back and exposing his neck; and then he understands. Purple’s optics go pale in the dark, and in an instant, his touch has disappeared, and rushed shuffling sounds betray his hasty escape to the other side of the cave.

Tailgate can’t see the marks, himself. Until this moment, he hadn’t even realized there were any on his neck, considering how much worse the parts of him he actually submerged in the water feel instead. But Purple’s claws would have, realistically, still been dripping wet when he’d grabbed Tailgate hours ago, cornered and in pain from the metal pinning him in place. It makes sense there would be rust marks on his main lines, potentially even in the shape of Purple’s claws.

Getaway hadn’t asked about them. He hopes that means he didn’t see them. But that’s a problem for later, when and if it might become relevant again. For now, he has more important things to deal with, like the sad mer currently curled up in the other corner.

“Hey, it’s okay. You didn’t know.” His warm tone gets him a low grumble that sounds like a rebuff, and red optics only half-visible over what he can only assume is a mound of coiled tail stare back at him. Reaching out his rust marked servos probably doesn’t help, assuming Purple can see in the dark better than he can, but he doesn’t exactly have a different set to reach out with.

Anything he’d been trying to think of to say in reassurance, understood or not, is lost when he trips. With a yelp, Tailgate braces himself for a less than gentle meeting with the stone floor under him, but it never comes. He’s pretty sure Purple was still several feet away, but somehow, he’s moved fast enough that Tailgate lands on the smooth expanse of interlocking plating he’d seen on the mer’s front instead of the rocky floor.

Luckily, this time, he’s dry. And surprisingly warm, reminding Tailgate of just how long his day has been as he finds himself melting in place and sagging against Purple. Hesitant servos come to rest on his back, so lightly they’re barely touching him.

“It’s not your fault, y’know? You didn’t know I was gonna help.” The grip around him tightens, pulling him firmly against Purple’s abdominal plating. It makes him realize there’s a difference in the structure of his frame beyond just the lack of legs; Purple has solid plating, but none of it seems to connect in a rigid way. Land mechs are all hard metal and unyielding firmness, but Purple is strangely soft, his scale-like armor pieces shifting independently of each other and allowing Tailgate to sink into them against the malleable protoform underneath.

If he thinks about it, he’d guess it explains the flexibility, and would make sense underwater. It might even allow Purple to squeeze into smaller places, potentially making it easier to hide and survive. If he doesn’t think about it, though, it’s just… remarkably comfortable.

Under him, Purple gives a low rumble, prompting him to look up. In the dark and away from the glowing cubes back on the other side of the cave, all he can see are red optics, but they tell plenty on their own. Purple is watching him closely, a warmth in his gaze that doesn’t really seem new, but which feels much more when it’s the only thing he can see.

On his back, Purple’s servos shift. Claws tap against his plating as they move, adjusting their hold on him to support Tailgate as Purple sits upright. He’s left supported by the mer’s arms, now pulled up and flush to his chassis, and startles slightly at a touch to his forehelm that he registers as the mer tapping their crests together.

It leaves those vivid red optics vent-stallingly close to his visor. This close, he can see flecks of different shades of red in them, like the varied hues of the facets of a precious gem. And there’s… a kind of depth to them he can’t describe. He already knows Purple is likely more intelligent than he is, but in this moment, he feels like he can see it. Purple is watching him, assessing him, absorbing details and what he’s doing with any of that behind that gaze of his, Tailgate has no way to know.

Except when he does. His gaze softens from that searching intensity, that sharp stare that tells Tailgate he’d been thinking hard about something. Now, the softness tells him Purple has made some kind of decision, along with the way he separates the contact between their crests.

It’s followed, softly, by a sound. Most of the mer’s sounds are throaty, something powerful rumbling from deep within. Sounds that he doesn’t need to open his mouth for, the inflections long since applied before he might ever need to shape a word like Tailgate is familiar with. But now, he does.

The sound comes out low and gravelly, shaped oddly by the way it passes through his lips and louder than usual. Red optics narrow, staring intently at Tailgate, before he makes another sound. This one is quieter, and hits a different area as it leaves him, changing the way it echoes into the air around them. Tailgate sees his optics tilt, likely as he tilts his head one way, and then the other; and then, he tries again. Whatever he does makes the sound come out like a hiss, and just like that, his gaze goes bright.

He looks almost… excited.

Again, and again, that sound of a hiss escapes him. It’s adjusted differently, over and over, repeated with a different addition to it each time, growing just a little bit longer with every pass. Claws prick against Tailgate’s plating, servos holding him tighter, almost desperately as the sound is repeated.

And then it hits him.

“You’re… you’re talking!” Tailgate breathes, and wishes he could see the mer’s face in the light as he does. The way his optics go ever brighter, wide and ecstatic, he can only imagine the expression that must have gone with it. It’s emphasized, just for a moment, by Purple leaning in again to nuzzle his face. Then he’s pulling back again, repeating the sound, drawing out some parts and shortening others, and this time, Tailgate knows to listen.

There’s the hissing sound, air pushed through his sharpened fangs, no doubt. Then it rises, sharp and long, almost like… Tailgate identifies it as a vowel, and leans closer, feeling himself match the mer’s own crescendo of excitement. Distinctly, so clearly distinctly now that he’s listening that it couldn’t be mistaken for anything else, the middle is a click. It lowers, draws out, dips hard, and rises again into another vowel and hiss.

Tailgate blinks. Stares up at the mer, at Purple, but— no, that isn’t right, is it? He can hear it clearly now, as it echoes in testing repeats in the air between them, and reaches up to place his own servos on the other’s still-moving, still-speaking face.

“'Cyclonus?'”

All at once, the repeating mantra stops. Red optics burn so brightly they may as well be pink, and the mer leans into his space again, breathing out what feels like a shudder of emotion over Tailgate’s mask. And over it all, loud and echoing against the walls of stone, a bubbling rumble escapes him. It’s like the drowned engine noise from earlier, low and rhythmic and vibrating Tailgate’s very plating with its frequency.

“That’s your name. Your name is Cyclonus.” The rumbling, the purring, only gets stronger. Tailgate’s world tilts on its axis as the mer—Cyclonus—leans down, laying him back on the dry floor. But he doesn’t let go, or leave him there; he holds him tightly, pulling Tailgate against pliant softness and pinning him under the deep, soothing resonance of that purr.

His day catches up to him, all at once. The ground is cool, the mech warm, the rock supportive, the mer soft. Buried under a soothing weight pressing down on him, Tailgate can feel Cyclonus’s purring echo throughout his frame, pulsing vibrations that settle the pain of his burns to a forgotten murmur.

Like a rock from a cliff’s edge into the water below, Tailgate plunges into the depths of recharge.

Tailgate can’t stop himself from rushing. He leaves haphazard scuffs in the sand as he runs, dashing across the beach. It’s still light out, his shift ended early with the completion of the nets across the compromised portion of the cliffs, and he has to catch the wall of the cave entrance with his servos to break his speed.

“I’m back!” He calls. Catching himself on the wall wasn’t quite enough to break all of his momentum, and he sails a few more steps forward before being swept up in purple arms.

“Welcome back,” Cyclonus lifts him up, tucking folded legs comfortably against his chestplates. He leans in, nuzzling against Tailgate’s mask in a greeting that has become familiar. “You’re excited.”

Factually, it’s been an incredibly short amount of time. A few days is barely a blip on the face of Cybertron, and that makes it even more impressive that Cyclonus can already speak as well as he does. He has an incredibly unique accent; shaped by whatever his native underwater language is, the way he pronounces his high sounds is melodic and enchanting, while his low ones bring to mind crashing ocean waves and darkened corners with beasts untold within. He’s still getting a grasp on all of his articles and grammar that would probably make Magnus cringe if he heard him right now, more intent on simply gathering and filing away more words first, but that’s perfectly fine by Tailgate.

There’s not a single doubt in his mind that, given a few more weeks, the only thing that will betray where he came from will be the accent.

Well. That and the tail.

“We’re done!” Tailgate tells him, throwing his arms in the air. Cyclonus tracks the movement with his optics; he’s been watching them, keeping a close eye on the state of Tailgate’s burns ever since he spotted them. There’s not much to see, now, not when the creeping rust has shaken loose and slowly faded to the dull matte of new metal. “Today was our last day. The cliffs are all good to go now.”

He knows Cyclonus isn’t going to ask where the cliffs will be going, because they’ve had that conversation already, and Cyclonus isn’t the kind of mech that needs something repeated. But he does expect some reaction other than the one he gets, in which the mer seems to deflate, face pinching with conflicted worry. When he speaks, Tailgate understands.

“You’ll… leave?”

“No.” Tailgate assures him, instantly, something which earns him a warm, small smile. But Tailgate’s own excited energy has vacated just as quickly as he’d launched himself in here, and in its place is nothing but the creeping feeling of reality. Tapping the palm of his servo against the mer’s shoulder, Cyclonus sets him down, giving Tailgate full access to brush his own servos gently over that unique plating of his. “No, I’ll… I’ll stay here with you. For as long as…”

Trailing off, Tailgate doesn’t really need to finish the thought. The implication hangs heavy in the air, following his touch as he ghosts fingertips over Cyclonus’s abdomen and across his wounds. Tailgate’s burns vanishing so quickly, and entirely on their own despite everything he knows saying they don’t heal, is strange and unexpected. But Cyclonus’s wounds closing up in record time, leaving the mer with just some pale marks where they’d been, is much less unexpected given what he is.

He’s fantastical. Almost mythical, gliding through life and the world around him like the rules are bending to let him pass by unhindered. In only a few days, he can reliably communicate in a language he’d never before known; never once does he need a word or sentence repeated to remember it; and his wounds vanish into the night with nothing more than a mark to betray they’d ever been there at all. He looks at the world around him with an old, calm kind of wisdom, understanding things with nothing more than a passing glance.

Cyclonus is something otherworldly. Something… something Tailgate has to let go of, when he chooses to leave. His injuries kept him out of the water, and now that they’re healed, he can go back anytime he pleases. Tailgate has to be prepared for that. He’d stayed this long, but maybe he was just keeping Tailgate company for the duration of his job, as thanks for saving him. Now that it’s done, and he’s asking about it…

He can feel the mer’s gaze on him, just as much as he can feel the barely tangible difference in the paler metal of Cyclonus’s scars. It’s heavy, burning into him with unspoken weight that he isn’t prepared to face, to be told it’s time to let go.

Tailgate looks up anyway.

Red optics are soft. Warm. They glow faintly in the shadowed cave, blinking slowly at him with a patience only Cyclonus is capable of. Ever so faintly, but echoing louder off of the surrounding rock walls, comes that familiar purr.

“I,” Cyclonus starts, looming close with the sway of a body held upright by nothing but core strength, and speaks the syllables against Tailgate’s mask in a warm nuzzle and reverent tone. “will stay with you,” He pulls away, tapping one large claw against Tailgate’s chassis. “for as long,” His tailfin winds around Tailgate’s legs. “as you will keep me.”

The end is punctuated by the claw on Tailgate’s chassis becoming a whole palm, one that slides down over the curves of his plating to settle at his waist, before pulling him flush against Cyclonus’s malleable armor. Tailgate lets himself be pulled, sinking strutless into the familiar contact. The purring echoes into his own plating, the soothing sensation gently knocking tension out of him.

He feels himself being lifted again, and lets it happen. Cyclonus pulls him up like he weighs nothing, because to him, he does. Cradled in massive arms against purple plating, Tailgate looks up, watching Cyclonus’s face. He knows that face; it’s his thinking face, features soft and optics intently focused somewhere else, running considerations and consequences behind them. “Cyclonus?” Tailgate asks, when it’s run for a few moments longer than is usual for the mer.

“You…” Cyclonus frees a servo, supporting Tailgate entirely with the other one, and trails it over pale blue plating. Tailgate forces himself not to shiver at the touch, instead watching those claws as they migrate toward and stop on the places where his rust burns had been. They catch there, tracing the rougher texture of new metal. “You cannot stay here. The water…”

A protest rises in his vocalizer, instantly. Tailgate bites it back. He’s right. Tailgate doesn’t belong here, on the blurred edge between his world and Cyclonus’s, and though he doesn’t mind it right now, it would eventually be less than fulfilling to spend so much of his time on an empty beach. And that’s ignoring the fact the cliffs are stabilized now, a fact that means the beach will be open to the public again as they so please.

He can’t stay here. And neither can Cyclonus, not with the risk of being found out as high as it is. If anyone were to discover him here, or follow Tailgate in meeting up with him, it could be… incredibly bad. Tailgate doesn’t know a lot about the people in charge, at least past his environmental safety coordinator, but he’s certain they wouldn’t care how much of a person Cyclonus really is when he’s something entirely different from anyone else.

Cyclonus just said he would stay with him, but… Tailgate can’t ask that of him. How could he? He can’t protect him, nor can he expect him to leave the environment he really belongs in.

“Tailgate.” The mer cuts into his thoughts, firmly, in a tone that implies he knows what spiral Tailgate’s processor is falling down. “You are thinking too hard.”

Tailgate tries, and fails, to match Cyclonus’s firm tone. “I can’t— I can’t just… we’re too different, aren’t we? I can’t go where you belong, and I can’t protect you from anyone where I belong, and we can’t… neither of us can stay here in the middle forever.”

“Tailgate.”

“And I… what about what I’d be keeping you from, anyway? You belong out there, not stuck here. You’re not made for land, and if you had to hide away all the time, that’s no way to live—” Cyclonus is opening his mouth again, to interrupt, but—

“Tailgate! I know you’re in there!”

—someone beats him to it.

Just like last time, Cyclonus’s grip around him tightens, ducking low and coiling masses of tail around them both as he growls in the direction of the entrance. But Tailgate knows that voice, and he squirms against the grip enough to get the mer’s attention.

“It’s Getaway.” He tells him, getting a disdainful scoff at the mention of him.

“Your work partner,” Cyclonus quotes in a hiss, making no effort to hide his dislike of the mech from what Tailgate has told him. He hadn’t meant to talk bad about him, really, he hadn’t— but, well, it’s hard to talk good about him, either. A fair portion of Cyclonus’s vocabulary might have been sourced from a… few rants.

He doesn’t know why he isn’t just using their work comm, or what he could be shouting for, but the last thing he needs is him coming in here. Wiggling free, though only because Cyclonus lets him, Tailgate makes a placating motion as he inches toward the entrance. “I’ll talk to him, okay? He’ll get bored and wander off in no time.”

The look on his face says he isn’t particularly pleased with this idea, but he lets Tailgate go, settling down to sit on where his hip would be—if he had them—to wait.

Outside, Getaway is standing in the sand, arms crossed. The moment Tailgate appears from the cave and into his sight, he leans his head back, staring down his mask with squinted optics.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m just—”

“‘Exploring’? Yeah, you used that one already.” Cutting him off and stalking closer, Getaway leers into his space. “What are you really doing out here, huh?”

Tailgate… does not have another lie prepared. He’d had plenty on hand while working together, but now that he can’t cite work reasons for coming back or looking around, and having thought his current dealings with Getaway were over for now, he doesn’t have a believable excuse. It leaves him on the spot, fumbling.

“You’re up to something. You have been this whole time, ever since we came here. Just the first day, I get back, and you’re off somewhere doing who knows what—”

“You were gone for hours!” Tailgate snaps back, taking a step into Getaway’s space himself. Getaway doesn’t back off or falter, only leaning nearly close enough to knock their heads together.

“Yeah, and what did you do for all that time? Anyone else would have just left, or gone back to work. But you didn’t. You were off somewhere, doing something, and you come back with rust burns that you claim you got from ‘falling down’, was it?” He steps back, stalking around, making exaggerated quote signs as he goes. “And yet. And yet. I’ve never seen someone get burns in the shape of a servo on their neck before. Now just what was that about, hmm?”

This. This is why Cyclonus can’t stay.

“You discovered something, didn’t you? And you’re trying to hide it, whatever it is. Maybe it’s something bad, something dangerous; or maybe it’s something beneficial, that you want to keep all to yourself. Because we both know, Tailgate,” Getaway keeps pacing, back and forth, until he starts going in circles around Tailgate. At the mention of his name, he stops behind the minibot, and in one smooth motion, grabs and wrenches one of his servos up into sight. The marks of new metal glint in the sunlight between them. “That rust burns don’t heal, do they? They don’t just magically disappear, bit by bit, over a few days. You should’ve needed this all replaced. So tell me,”

He pulls, lifting Tailgate clear off the ground, leaving him to dangle helplessly in the air. Ignoring Tailgate’s protests and tugs on his own servo in that vice-like grip, Getaway leans in again, pinning him under optics that burn with… Tailgate isn’t sure what. Distrust, that simmering dislike of him that he can always feel but is never fully shown, and a kind of fixated determination that makes his lines go cold.

“What. Did. You. Find?”

“Me.”

Startled, Getaway drops Tailgate in a heap. There’s the sound of something hitting metal, and in the time it takes Tailgate to raise his head, Getaway has disappeared completely. In his place stands Cyclonus; optics burning with something far more dangerous than Getaway’s could ever hope to. Shoulders squared and back straight, he looms at his full possible height on land and exudes something that makes the sheer, hardcoded instinct to run away from danger scream warnings in the deepest recesses of Tailgate’s processor.

If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the light around Cyclonus was warping, casting him in an eerily uncanny effect that Tailgate physically couldn’t describe if he tried. Getaway dropping him must’ve jostled something, because that can’t be real, the way the light almost… curves to avoid touching him, the way his optics blaze with tendrils of light that move like a living thing, the way his lashing tailfin seems to draw shadows like pen ink in the air behind him.

Cyclonus reaches for him. In contrast to everything else about his current demeanor, those claws are held loosely, offered in an open palm, a servo he knows will be gentle before he even touches it. And he does, without hesitation, meeting the offered contact and letting himself be pulled up and into purple arms once again. Cyclonus almost seems surprised, for just a moment, before pulling him against soft, warm plating and nuzzling him with what feels like more affection than ever before.

“Thank you.” He purrs, in the kind of tone that says he means it; like Tailgate has just done something that means the world to him, something he needed.

And Tailgate has no clue what he’s talking about. “What for?”

Cyclonus stares. With a long, silent pause, with a look on his face like Tailgate has managed to, for once, genuinely stall his processor, he stares. It’s enough to make Tailgate think he’s messed up whatever was making Cyclonus so thankful just a moment ago, but the tension breaks with a fond, exasperated smile crossing his face. “...Nothing. I’ll… tell you later.”

As if on cue, muffled groaning interrupts Tailgate before he can press the issue. Both turning, Tailgate finally spots where Getaway ended up when he seemingly teleported from Tailgate’s awareness of him. He’s several feet away, collapsed in the sand in front of a rock he must’ve bounced off of.

“How hard did you hit him?” “Hard enough.”

With a steady swish of his tail under them, seemingly not even needing his arms to pull himself forward on dry land anymore, Cyclonus approaches the downed mech. Though it’s hard to tell from his position in his arms, Tailgate doesn’t feel like Cyclonus is exuding quite as much danger as he was earlier, his approach now more of a threat than a promise.

Getaway doesn’t pick up on that, though. He looks up, and upon spotting the mer descending on him, scrambles backwards against the rock behind him with babbled pleas. Cyclonus ignores him; continuing to slither forward, he gets what must be an uncomfortable lack of distance away from him before leaning down, looming in his face the same way Getaway had loomed in Tailgate’s.

“You.” He starts, letting the single word hang in the air between all of them. Tailgate expects him to give some kind of a warning, to state exactly what he wants from Getaway, something like never come here again or you never saw me or, more likely, look at Tailgate ever again and I’ll find you, but he doesn’t say any of those things. Instead, he just nods his head toward the other side of the beach, where the incline to the cliffs is. “Leave.”

Evidently, he doesn’t need to be told twice. Scrambling to his pedes and only tripping over the sand a little bit as he goes, Getaway takes the opportunity for what it is and vacates their presence with a frankly impressive level of speed. They both watch him go, and Cyclonus only turns to look at Tailgate again once he’s out of sight.

“Aren’t you worried he’ll tell someone? About you?” Tailgate asks, because he is. Cyclonus might’ve scared the mech halfway down to his base parts, but it won’t be enough to keep him from talking, eventually.

Cyclonus’s answer is instant, and certain. “No.”

He gives no answer for why. Instead, he turns, still carrying Tailgate as he moves down the beach in a smooth cascade of scaled armor over sand. The swish of plating through sand, the steady but lilting movement from left to right as he goes, the distant crash of waves against cliffs, all compound together in a seamless symphony of sound and sensation. It reminds him, again, that the water is where Cyclonus came from, and he—

“Stop that.”

Tailgate jolts out of his thoughts, blinking. When he looks back to Cyclonus’s face, he’s met with a firm stare, the tail end of what the mer had been trying to instill before Getaway came along. He holds that stare, firmly, for a solid few moments as if to make sure Tailgate listens to him this time. Then he turns back to the water, squaring his shoulders in a shift Tailgate can feel.

“I don’t want to go back.”

He speaks with conviction. There’s no hesitation, no softness to betray uncertainty. Tailgate knows it’s the truth the moment he hears it, though it still doesn’t make it any easier to really understand. “But… what about…” There’s so much that could go so terribly wrong, and so much more that could go… mildly wrong. Anything from someone wanting to take Cyclonus apart to study him, to Cyclonus regretting leaving his home behind just for the fleeting interest in something new; something new that will, in the end, turn out to be nothing more than a plain little minibot.

“It was home, once. It was… peaceful. Complete. Golden cities on the other side of the barrier, a place to protect and be proud of. None of us had any reason to leave.” There’s more to what he’s saying, Tailgate knows. Cyclonus doesn’t quite have the words to describe it like he wants to, but it doesn’t seem to frustrate him. All he does is gaze out at the water, like he’s looking at something that isn’t there anymore. “…It was a very, very long time ago.”

“It’s gone, isn’t it?”

Cyclonus breathes in, almost like he’s savoring the air above the surface. He looks up, optics flickering over the bright colors of the sky far overhead, with a warmth and curiosity that makes it appear that he’s not as torn up by that as Tailgate might’ve expected.

“It is gone. I have no reason to keep looking for it.” He turns, and the warmth in his expression only increases as he looks down at Tailgate with a soft smile. “It is past time for something new.”

The meaning isn’t lost on him. “But… but…” Tailgate can’t help but look back at where Getaway disappeared to, and the world he came from that begins in that direction, inland and far from the water. Staring that direction doesn’t give him any further way to put his fears into words, and he looks back helplessly.

Except Cyclonus is doing that thing again. The purple of his plating shimmers in the sunlight, hazing off of him at the edges as if he were made of smoke. His grip on Tailgate, though gentle, is sturdy in a way that betrays the raw strength elegantly buried underneath, so much so that Tailgate is suddenly sure Cyclonus could win a fight against even someone like Ultra Magnus if he wanted to.

The twisting, trailing light of Cyclonus’ optics is just as otherworldly as it was the first time, and looking at it now, Tailgate knows Cyclonus is fully capable of taking care of himself. Even in a new place, somewhere unfamiliar, with all of the possible dangers that Tailgate’s own anxiety could spend hours listing, the knowledge that he could slip all of them like smoke through chains sits with him as if it were basic knowledge that he’d onlined with.

“Do you…” Tailgate finds himself asking, slowly. It could go wrong. It could be a mistake. But if neither of them want to part ways, and Cyclonus doesn’t want to go back under the water, then… “—want to come home with me?”

Cyclonus practically seems to glow in the sunlight, and leans forward, nuzzling him softly again. “I would wish for nothing less.”