Chapter Text
Written originally for the livejournal TF_Speedwriting Advent Calendar as part of a gift-fic series (see end notes for more details).
Speedwriting Prompts:
1. "There's no place like home."
2. Guiding star
3. Scenario: living in or visiting somewhere very, very cold
4. This picture
Stumbling into Recline's new quarters, First Aid was only dimly aware of his surroundings. He had a vague impression of twinkling colored lights embedded in the curved walls, a shifting fractal pattern that danced with the washes and eddies of their fields. Then Recline was everywhere -- hands, cables, glossa and dente renewing their familiarity with First Aid's haptic map, even as the probing, unmuted field delved even deeper.
First Aid did little more than fall into the caresses as Recline pulled him to the contoured bench in the window nook. He needed to be touched and explored, needed the unfettered passion of Recline's desire. The world came to a halt as Recline's mesh armor and semi-solid metalogel began folding back, not along any apparent seams but with the same smooth complexity with which the berthformer shifted his shape.
"O-oh," First aid stuttered in a static gasp as he glimpsed the starstuff beneath, refracted in the facets of Recline's tower-forged crystalline chamber.
First Aid's bond coding flooded his primary threads, overwhelming his processing streams with the need to make that guiding star part of his innermost galaxy. A tertiary thread reminded him there were reasons not to bond yet, important ones that he could not call up at the moment. He dimly recalled that could trust Recline to hold them back from what seemed the most perfect inevitability, and for a brief moment, he resented his sparkmate's patience.
"Recline," he sobbed as the his thick chestplates opened wide with a pneumatic hiss and his bulky fabrication chambers shifted out of the way, "I want... I want..."
"I know, dearspark, so do I. Trust me," Recline's field was suddenly soothing, calming them, slowing them. Cables slid effortlessly into waiting sockets, the beloved other sliding through firewalls that portaled open with deep familiarity. A second codestream twined with First Aid's pressing bondcode, easing it back to latency with assurances that widening his web would happen in due time.
::Coronae,:: Recline promised him, eliding and twining his glossa along First Aid's in tactile imitation of their outermost sparkflare. They quickly found their resonance, and then writhing tendrils conjoined, brighter than the lights on Recline's walls that danced in response.
This they could share, ejecting as much core-mass into their outer layers as they dared before blazing to overload, accompanied by a visual symphony of supernovae on the walls.
~~~~~~~~~
First Aid onlined on Recline's platform, so deeply contoured to his frame that he felt as though he were within his lover's body. Cables twined around him, stroking him. More intimate still was the way he was immersed and bathed Recline's field.
"Space was so cold without you," First Aid murmured. He could almost hear Blades teasing him somewhere in his spark for being such a sap.
"Did your brothers keep you warm?" Recline's voice purred from beneath and through him.
"Differently than you do," First Aid admitted. "I can't imagine being without them, without Defensor. And it felt really good to show the neutrals that Autobots are not just about war, but--" First Aid paused, considering what glyphs and modifiers could possibly express what he felt.
"There are so many ways to love, Aid, and you have such a bright, reaching spark. How could a spark like yours be content with just one kind of bond?"
"Yes... yes," First Aid whispered, feeling so warm, so safe and cared for. "I'm tired of waiting, Recline. I don't know if it's premonition or paranoia. I just don't want to wait anymore."
Recline's field became briefly muted, making First Aid want to keen with frustration and loss. He knew it wasn't fear, or at least not any fear Recline had for himself. Recline was deeply protective of First Aid and his brothers, still so new to functioning. The berthformer was both lover and tertiary creator, one of several dozen code donors for the Protectobots, and a secondary source for First Aid's generalist medic code. He was the origin of what Wheeljack gleefully referred to as First Aid's 'bedside manner' protocols, along with coding that related to psychological repair.
While new sparks were welcome and encouraged to explore the vast number of ways to share pleasure and connection, either casually or intimately, forging actual sparkbonds beyond those of a creation cohort simply was not done. Not until the sparkcore was firmly coalesced and those creation bonds were absolutely established or rejected. Extra-cohort bondcode normally remained latent until that time. First Aid's, however, began bursting out of dormancy with stunning regularity after Recline's capture by the Stunticons.
"I'm not young," First Aid reminded him firmly. "Just new to this frame."
"Every indication's that you're right, Aid, but until Metroplex recovers his memories, or yours if he's got them, we've got to assume you're new," Recline reminded him. "Besides, those memories may change things."
"They won't," First Aid said, as confident of that as he was of anything in his functioning. He and his brothers were not even sure they planned to integrate the older memories if they were recovered. Recline was home to him, as much as his brothers were. Whatever secrets Metroplex held would not change that.