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Since the war had finally ended, Rodimus had been sleeping over a lot.
Once a week. Twice a week. Then every other night.
Most cycles he didn’t leave at all.
“You’re always welcome, you know that,” Ratchet softened the gruffness from his tone when he opened the door for his most frequent house guest.
“We can make up the spare room. Drift never uses it for sparring anyway. He only seems to want to fling his fraggin’ swords around the living room while I’m trying to watch the damn Cyberbowl.”
It prompted a smile out of Rodimus, “Well, I wouldn’t wanna intrude…”
“Sure you wouldn’t,” Ratchet snorted, and let him in.
Rodimus had his own swanky new apartment. And it was swanky; overlooked the senate district, wasn’t far from Optimus’s neighbourhood. Very upmarket. And there was nothing wrong with it, save maybe that it was always empty.
(Unlike Ratchet’s.)
He and Drift preferred the city outskirts, where rebuilding was still taking place. Now that the war had ended it was the labourers and construction workers that were the most in need of medics, and in Ratchet’s opinion, the most deserving of good ones. He still kept an office in the centre of Iacon, but only held hours there once a week. Mostly to see (nag) old friends.
Rodimus strode on it, making a beeline for the fuel dispenser and helping himself without waiting for permission.
“Drift!” Ratchet called, heading back to the sofa where he had been planning to rust in front of the holo-projector for the rest of the cycle. “He’s back!”
He didn’t need to elaborate as to who.
There was a clattering of noise from the other room, then Drift came sweeping into the main living space, his expression brightened at the ridiculous sight of Rodimus guzzling down a cube of energon. He rushed in for a hug and Rodimus choked, spilling it.
“Watch the floors!” Ratchet snapped when it broke out into horseplay and they started trying to pull each other into a headlock, laughing like idiots. The cube fell to the floor with a clatter, making a mess of energon anyway. Ratchet turned up the volume on his game, hiding a smile behind his fist.
“Sorry,” Drift said breathlessly, suddenly invading Ratchet’s space on the sofa.
Ratchet shifted over to make room for him, when Rodimus jumped over the back of the sofa to fill the seat on the other side, trapping Ratchet between the two of them.
“They’re broadcasting the service,” Drift didn’t bother to ask before changed the channel to some boring Spectralist priest droning on about Primus.
Ratchet sighed, resigned to it, but Rodimus groaned and slumped down the sofa, falling into Ratchet’s lap. “Ugh, put the race on!”
He was a warm familiar weight, and smelt like Drift- probably because he was always using their wash-racks.
“Shhh! I can’t hear-!”
Ratchet shuttered his optics and allowed Drift to lift his arm from the back of the sofa to lay it across his shoulders, cuddling into his side. Ratchet dropped a servo to Rodimus’s helm in his lap, stroking it distractedly.
“Pick a channel or I’m switching it off,” he threatened.
Rodimus sighed and Drift dropped his helm to his shoulder. Ratchet refused to online his optics and suffer the despondent looks the two would doubtlessly be giving him.
Rodimus usually fell into recharge with the holo playing away to itself, featuring loud, roaring races or ridiculous automobile stunts. (Ratchet hated the idea of him getting ideas, but honestly couldn’t be bothered to put up with his whining if anything ‘boring’ was on.)
He and Drift would have to carefully ease out from under him when it came time to retire for the evening. He rarely woke when they moved him, but often stirred and groaned in his sleep, servos reaching for something, someone.
Ratchet turned the volume down, making sure to drag an insulation sheet across Rodimus’s haphazardly sprawled frame to keep him warm through the night. He would always linger before leaving him, watching the slow rise and fall of his frame beneath the sheet as he slept.
It went on like that for weeks. Then months.
Ratchet kept lingering in the doorway of the sparring room Drift never used. Rodimus was a young mech, but with enough nights on that sofa his back-strut would give out soon enough. They ought to provide him with somewhere to sleep.
“You don’t need a sparring room,” he broached the subject with Drift one morning while they took their energon in berth. Rodimus was out in the living space, snoring on their sofa. Ratchet could hear him through the door- he ought to check his air vents.
Drift shot him a look of distress, “Where will I keep the swords?”
“In your subspace where I won’t have to look at them.” Ratchet sipped his cube. “I’m going to put another berth in there.”
Drift had the audacity to frown, “Why?”
Ratchet pointed to their door in frustration. The beat of silence between them perfectly showcased Rodimus’s impressive talent for snoring. “Why do you think?”
“Our berth’s plenty big enough,” Drift shrugged, swirling his cube distractedly. “He can share with us.”
Ratchet glared at him, thinking Drift was just trying to get out of loosing his sparring room, but when no cheeky smirk followed the ridiculous comment, Ratchet realised he was serious.
He sat up a little straighter. “In our berth? This berth?”
“Yes.”
“And what’s he going to do while we’re interfacing? Read a book?”
Drift continued to swirl his cube around, avoiding Ratchet’s gaze. “He hates reading-“
“I know he hates reading.” Ratchet said impatiently. “Look, you can’t just-“
He struggled. He was very fond of Rodimus -probably more than he wanted to admit to himself- and Drift doubtlessly loved him, but Rodimus lived a different life to them, with different priorities. Not a week had passed since their return to Cybertron without the media using his designation to sell their trashy gossip stories.
It wasn’t all true, but most of it was. The amount of times Rodimus had come stumbling back to their apartment in the unholy hours of the morning covered in glitter and reeking of high-grade didn’t bear thinking about.
Ratchet wished he was in a position to lock him in with them, just to keep him out of trouble.
“He’s needs at least one stable relationship in his life.” Ratchet settled on instead. “We’re his friends. You’re his best friend. We’re not risking it for a meaningless frag.”
“It wouldn’t be meaningless.” Drift frowned.
“That’s the problem,” Ratchet told him sadly. “He’s not interested in settling down. Not with a old coot like me-“
“We wouldn’t know unless we asked.” Drift pointed out, leaning into his space. “And for the record, you medics age like fine energon-“
Ratchet pushed a servo to Drift’s face before he could be caught in a kiss. “Enough of that. I’m running late.”
“You don’t have clinic today.”
“No,” Ratchet huffed, throwing off the covers and swinging his pedes off the berth. “I have to go into Iacon. Track down Optimus. Jazz is spreading rumours about him being sparked.”
“Optimus?” Drift raised an optical ridge, “Isn’t he with-?”
“Yes.” Ratchet snapped, not wanting to talk about it.
Drift blew air out of his vents, lifting his cube for another sip, “Primus have mercy…”
Ratchet couldn’t have agreed more.
As he passed Rodimus to leave -snoring, tangled in his insulation sheet, sprawled awkwardly with only his legs still somehow on the sofa- he found himself wondering what it was about these Primes’ and their proclivity for attracting so much drama and bad press.
Rodimus was still home when he arrived back, jostling for space on the sofa with Drift as they played a racing game on the projector. It seemed to be about how many pedestrians they could run over, which was in pretty bad taste.
“Hey!”
“What’s up!”
They greeted him, mashing buttons and leaning into each others line of sight.
“Boys,” Ratchet greeted back, placing his servos on the small of his back and arching, stretching out stiff struts until he heard a satisfying crack.
He’d had a long day, but they filled the apartment with noise and excitement. It meant Ratchet could sit back and zone-out as they joked and laughed and tried to pull Ratchet into their arguments. It was a familiar, comforting sort of chaos that Ratchet missed since leaving the Ark.
“I’m turning in,” he decided, when they tried to make him the tiebreaker in an argument over what to watch again. He stood up, dislodging Rodimus’s legs from his lap and letting Drift’s servo slip out of his grasp.
He was heading to the berth-room when he called over his shoulder, “You coming?”
Drift gave up on the holo-projector, rolling off the sofa. “Yeah, yeah-“
“And you?” Ratchet continued without thinking, looking to Rodimus.
Drift stopped. Rodimus froze.
He stared from behind the sofa. “…Me?”
Ratchet felt warmth rising into his face. He cleared his vocaliser, subtly shooting a glare at Drift for putting this idea in his mind in the first place. “Yeah, you. Or are you gonna keep letting that sofa turn your spinal strut to scrap?”
Rodimus stood up sharply, rubbing the back of his neck, “Uh, well, I don’t mind the sofa.”
Out of the corner of his optic, Ratchet saw Drift’s face fall. He nodded, keeping his own expression neutral. “Suit yourself, kid. The offer’s there.”
Rodimus’s mouth worked silently for a moment, like he didn’t know what to say. “…I, Yeah, thanks.”
Ratchet took Drift by the shoulder and led him towards the berth-room.
He leaned in to whisper to Ratchet, “I thought we weren’t going to-“
“Yeah, so did I.” Ratchet muttered back, annoyed at himself.
He glancing over his shoulder, watching Rodimus perch himself on the edge of the sofa and stare into the distance.
Ratchet was recharging when he heard a noise, felt movement in the berth.
He struggled to online a blurry, aching optic. Drift was awake next to him, moving around, adjusting the covers. Ratchet groaned and began to roll over to tell him to lie fragging still and go back to sleep, when something heavy fell between them.
Ratchet flinched, squinting through the dark.
“Sorry.” Rodimus’s voice; an unsure whisper.
Ratchet was half-asleep and confused, but he grunted, shifting to make room for him. Rodimus twisted, his spoiler knocking into Ratchet, his long legs tangling in the sheets and pulling them low-
Ratchet grabbed them and yanked them back up, grumpy. Somewhere on the other side of the berth, Drift was speaking softly, Rodimus whispering back.
Ratchet dragged his own pillow over his helm, trying to drown them out. “Boys…” he warned.
They fell silent. The berth stilled as their wriggling stopped.
Ratchet sighed, relaxing. He felt a presence tuck in against his side, their vents warm against his arm. They smelt like Drift, but their armour wasn’t shaped the same. Distantly, Ratchet knew it was Rodimus. He turned onto his side so he was facing him, and hummed in approval when he felt Rodimus nuzzle in under his chin with a sigh. Instinct had him throwing an arm over him, keeping him close.
He cracked an optic back online and meet Drift’s bright gaze where he was resting his chin on Rodimus’s shoulder, spooning him from behind, arms wrapped around his waist, sandwiching him between them.
In the morning, Ratchet decided, shuttering his optics again, too comfortable and warm to resist the pull of recharge. He would react to this in the morning.
For now, he needed his recharge.
And as Rodimus’s breaths slowed and deepened into snores, he realised he wasn’t the only one.
Ratchet didn’t wake to the racket of a young mech, with air vents that definitely needed looking at, snoring directly into his audial.
Since he was quite sure last night had been nothing but a wistful dream, he hadn’t really expected to.
But someone was mouthing at his neck. He angled his helm back, happy to let them, reaching out for a hip or a leg, wanting to draw them in. Drift, he assumed. But when he onlined his optics he was met with red armour plating.
Ah, so not a dream.
“Rodimus…” he breathed, blinking his optics into focus. It took him longer to come out of recharge as an older mech. His limbs were slow to respond, clumsy to start with, but they found Rodimus’s waist and held him there, unable to push him away, unable to let go.
Behind him was Drift, kissing along Rodimus’s shoulder and urging him closer to Ratchet, his optics dark with lust.
Ratchet groaned, fingers clenching on Rodimus’s armour. “It’s too early for this-“
He felt Rodimus huff disagreeably against his neck, then hips pressed to his thigh, rocking with definite interest.
“Primus…” Ratchet grunted, warmth blooming below his tanks. He gave in, not that he put up much of a fight. “Alright, alright-“
“Finally,” Drift huffed, reached around to yank the covers away.
He shoved them to the end of their berth. Ratchet didn’t have chance to feel the chill of the room before Rodimus rose on all fours and clambered over him, keeping him pinned flat to the berth by his shoulders and settling into his lap. Ratchet stared up at him, breath catching, then stalling completely when Drift joined him, pressing close to Rodimus’s back and reaching around to stroke over his armour.
They looked down at him knowingly, Rodimus undulating with Drift’s touch, his engines turning over with excitement. His face -normally so stupid and smug- was all flushed and vulnerable.
Rodimus took Ratchet’s servos and placed them on his thighs, wanting him to touch. Ratchet slid his palms up smooth armour to thumb as the seams of his hips, watching, mesmerised, as Rodimus opened his valve panel and began to rock, dragging the soft mesh of his valve across Ratchet’s codpiece in teasing little movements.
Drift, watching over Rodimus’s shoulder, breathed a prayer and reached down, his digits circling over the node that was just peaking out. Rodimus arched back into him with a bitten back groan, grinding his hips down.
Ratchet lifted his hips into it, his spike releasing with a soft noise of pressure. It stood upright, parallel to Rodimus’s abdomen.
Then he fell forward, grabbing at Ratchet’s armour for purchase as Drift pushed him down and leaned over him, angling Rodimus’s aft up and shifting into place and-
“Ugh!” Rodimus was shunted forward against Ratchet as Drift entered him from behind, his optics fluttering in pleasure. Ratchet’s desire swarmed as he felt Rodimus’s thighs shake and twitch where they straddled his waist.
“C’mere,” he grabbed Rodimus’s handsome face and pulled him down, cupping the back of his helm to kiss him. It was messy and breathless, Rodimus responding clumsily as Drift continued to spike him, slow and gentle.
He wanted more of him.
Ratchet lifted his hips from the berth, his spike brushing Rodimus’s belly and leaving a trail across the armour, desperate for more friction. He got it when Drift pushed Rodimus’s knees out, causing him to spread his thighs wide and sink into Ratchet, trapping his spike between their frames. Ratchet reached down to grab Rodimus’s aft, squeezing with both servos, following along with the back and forth motion of it moving with Drift’s thrusts.
When Rodimus overloaded he did it with a vulnerable cry, his face tucked into Ratchet’s neck, his digits tight on his armour, his frame tensing against Ratchet’s.
Drift’s pace faltered, his hips twitching, a sign of impending overload that Ratchet knew all too well. He held deep and exhaled shakily, his helm falling to rest between Rodimus’s shoulders.
Then they both went slack atop Ratchet, their combined weight knocking the air from his vents and making him huff in discomfort.
“You slaggers,” he hissed, hot and squashed and still humming with charge.
Drift lifted his helm, optics bleary, and rolled off Rodimus to sprawl listlessly at Ratchet’s side. Rodimus remained where he was, ex-venting into Ratchet’s armour heavily.
Ratchet wanted to let him rest there, but had to shift slightly to ease the ache of his throbbing spike.
Rodimus twitched. “Sorry,” he mumbled, moving to get off.
“No,” Ratchet stopped him with an arm around his back. “You stay. I’ve got you.”
Rodimus hid his face again, unwilling to meet his optics, but didn’t try to get up again.
“…Cool.” He mumbled, trying for casual but missing by about a lightyear.
Ratchet had wanted to wait for their frames to cool and the murky haze of overload to dissipate, so he and Drift could speak with him, about what he wanted, about what they wanted. But Rodimus never laid still for long.
Digits wandered, and Ratchet was still half-hard when a warm servo wrapped around the base of his spike. A groan he couldn’t stifle slipped from his vocaliser.
“It’s fine,” he grunted, moving to brush Rodimus off, but it was Drift that caught his wrist and stopped him from impeding Rodimus.
“I wanna,” Rodimus breathed, working his servo up and down, Drift kissing Ratchet as a distraction. Like they were in on this together.
Blast it, he was outnumbered now- was Ratchet’s last coherent thought before just giving in and letting them do as they pleased.
When he overloaded, hips bucking, his transfluid spilled over Rodimus’s servo and shot across his own chassis. He was just catching his breath enough to complain about not having the time to shower it off, when both Drift and Rodimus descended on him, mouths kissing down his chassis, glossas licking into his armour seams.
He hissed a curse when Drift took him into his mouth, then had to grip the headboard for restraint when Rodimus joined him, kissing around the base and licking up the shaft, occasionally distracting Drift enough to draw him into a wet messy kiss, before swapping positions, his mouth closing around Ratchet’s tip to suckle.
Ratchet overloaded into Rodimus’s warm soft mouth. Processor still spinning, he could only watch helplessly as Rodimus shared Ratchet’s transfluid in a kiss with Drift.
Primus help him…
“Alright.” He breathed, rubbing his servos over his face to get a grip on himself. “I think that’s enough for today-“
Drift and Rodimus weren’t listening. Their kiss had deepened. Drift was sinking onto his back, Rodimus crawling on top of him.
Ratchet frowned. “You’re going to overheat.”
Still nothing. Drift moaned.
“Hey, isn’t there a race on today?” Ratchet announced loudly, knowing it would get the attention of at least one of them.
It worked. Poor predicable Rodimus shot upright, his lips swollen and cheeks flushed. “Is there?!”
Ratchet shrugged noncommittally, but it was enough. Rodimus rolled off of Drift without so much as an apology and raced out of the room, rushing to check the holo.
Left on the berth with his legs and his panels open, and Drift glared petulantly.
“Pace yourself.” Ratchet warned, easing himself upright. His frame ached from the exertion of overloading twice, and he’d barely done anything. “Look, I’m late or I’d stay. Don’t do anything stupid until I’m back. We need to talk about this.”
“He’s not that much of a ‘feelings’ talker,” Drift warned, like Ratchet hadn’t already figured that out for himself.
“Too damn bad.” Ratchet adjusted his amour carefully, trying -in vain- to make himself look presentable. “Behave.”
“Tell that to him,” Drift pointed in the direction of the living room.
Ratchet planned on coming home, taking his fuel, dozing on the sofa for three hours trying to tune out the deafening racket of revving engines and screeching tyres from whatever car race was on the holo, and then cornering Rodimus for a good honest talk about their relationship.
Or lack there of.
Depending on how obtuse Rodimus was going to be.
That didn’t go to plan when as soon as he stepped foot inside Drift was dragging him through the apartment, calling for Rodimus, and-
Well, there just was much time for talking.
Ratchet sat propped up against the head of the berth frame, armour pinging and fans buzzing, petting a sleeping Rodimus’s helm as he waited for Drift to return with the fuel.
His conjunx reappeared with three cubes awkwardly clutched between his servos. He extended them towards Ratchet in a silent plea for him to take one before he dropped the lot.
Ratchet did, watching Drift glance at Rodimus. He must have been debating whether he should wake him up.
“You talk?” Ratchet asked quietly.
Drift climbed onto the berth next to him, careful not to jostle it. “Me and him? About what, the Grand Prix?”
Ratchet sighed loudly.
“Oh, you mean about making love this morning,” Drift teased with a smile.
Ratchet scowled, revolted, “What have I told you about calling it that.”
“It’s what the humans say. I like it.”
“So he didn’t say anything?” Ratchet found that hard to believe.
Drift pulled a face, “Kind of. I mean, he did say you were pretty spry for your age.”
“He said ‘spry’?”
“I’m paraphrasing. Doesn't matter what he said.”
Which Ratchet took that to mean it probably wasn’t something to repeat in polite company.
Drift sipped his cube. Ratchet followed his lead.
“…I told him we like having him around.” Drift said. “Really like having him around.”
Ratchet paused with his cube at his mouth. “What did he say?”
“He said we were going to miss the formation lap of the race,” Drift admitted, fond but sad. “He wanted to change the subject.”
Ratchet took another drink of his cube to keep from sighing. Again. All he ever did these days was sigh.
Drift looked down at Rodimus, “Should I wake him?”
“Leave him.” Rodimus’s arm was a dead weight where it rested across Ratchet’s lap. He was out for the count. “If his tanks drop low his systems will rouse him.”
“We’ll talk tomorrow.” Drift decided firmly, nodding to himself with the confidence only a deluded best friend could have. “We don’t let him interface with us again until we’ve talked about it.”
But Ratchet was proud of his conviction anyway, simply because Rodimus had always had this habit of steamrolling Drift; being louder, more boisterous, more popular, and much more stubborn. If Ratchet had a shanix for every time Drift was dragged into one of Rodimus’s stupid shenanigans, he’d be the richest medic to have ever lived.
Ratchet smiled in agreement. “It’s a plan.”
It wasn’t much of a plan, because Ratchet woke the next morning to Rodimus on his back, legs open, moaning as Drift fragged him deep and slow.
“He seduced me.” Drift protested when he walked into the living space fifteen minutes later and Ratchet gave him a Look.
The wash-racks were running, so Rodimus must have jumped in to clean himself up. Ratchet was surprised Drift hadn’t joined him, considering how many smudges and paint scuffs littered his broad thighs. He was quite thoroughly dishevelled.
Ratchet finished his energon in silent judgment.
Turned out he didn’t have much of a pede to stand on, when the very next cycle he ended up ‘facing Rodimus against the wash-rack tiles. Drift waited for them with towels, and shot Ratchet a very pointed look when they came out.
Unwilling to face the consequences of his own hypocrisy, Ratchet threw the damp towel at his head. Which Rodimus unfortunately took to mean ‘towel fight!’
Ratchet fled the scene before he too was swatted across the aft.
“Alright you, listen,” Ratchet cornered him after over two weeks of this nonsense, when Rodimus came flouncing back into their apartment dusty, and hot, and his tyres all worn through from whatever stupid thing he’d been off doing. “We need to talk about this relationship.”
“You and Drift?” Rodimus span and ducked away from Ratchet, snatching a cube from the dispenser. Ratchet followed close behind, not about to let him go.
“You and Drift, and me,” Ratchet growled, following him into the living space. Drift was lingering there, watching apprehensively. “You know how much Drift cares about you, you know I do too, and we want-“
“Ugh,” Rodimus -who had been about to guzzle the cube like a starving mech as per usual- suddenly held the cube away from himself. It was obvious he wasn’t listening, “Have you changed the energon?”
“No,” Ratchet growled, pointing to the sofa. “Sit your aft down so we can talk about this.”
Looking more than a little miffed, Rodimus sat himself down. He eyed the cube, then pinched his nose as he went for another attempt at drinking it.
“As I was saying,” Ratchet ground out, coming to stand in front of him with his servos on his hips, serious and stern because Rodimus needed to listen. “We care about you, and we want to make space for you-“
Rodimus shot up suddenly, dropping his cube and clapping a servo to his mouth and all but running Ratchet over in his haste to get past him. Ratchet stumbled back and fell into his armchair, stunned, as Rodimus raced from the room, Drift in hot pursuit.
He heard the wash-rack door shut, then Drift shouting for him through it.
Something twisted in Ratchet’s chest. Rodimus was so averse to having this conversation that he literally fled it and hid himself in the wash-racks.
He remained in the armchair, a misery he hadn’t felt since the height of the war creeping in…
Drift reappeared in the doorway, more confused than hurt.
“He’s purging.”
Ratchet frowned.
Rodimus’s cube was on its side on the floor, the energon it had carried was mostly puddled across the floor. Ratchet bent to retrieve it, sniffing the dregs that remained, then tasting it.
“…There’s nothing wrong with it.” He murmured.
Drift blinked at him.
Ratchet blinked back.
Rodimus didn’t reappear for some time.
Drift had continued to eavesdrop at the wash-rack door and had reported to Ratchet that he’d stopped throwing up a while ago now, so he was probably just hiding now, embarrassed. Primus only knew why. This wasn’t the first time they’d seen Rodimus purge.
Though he wasn’t usually sober.
“Talk to him,” Drift mouthed at Ratchet as they stood outside the wash-racks, pushing him towards the door.
Ratchet dug his heels in, “You talk to him-“
“You’re the medic.“
“You’ve known him longer.”
“But if he’s…” Drift cringed. “You know.“
“It’ll be a virus,” Ratchet argued quickly, because he was delusional. Rodimus didn’t have flickering optics, or spluttering vents, or the slowed, glitching speech that came with viral infections. He didn’t have a virus.
He had… something else.
Drift was staring at him, his optics narrowed judgementally. “…I think you should apologise to Optimus.”
“What the Pit has he got to do with any of this?!” Ratchet demanded, forgetting to whisper.
“Just that the symptoms of a carriage are maybe not that obvious after all-“
“His symptoms were obvious.” Ratchet snarled.
“This is obvious.” Drift glared back.
Ratchet was about to loudly suggest he leave the medical diagnoses to the actual medic present, when a rather pathetic sounding voice came through the wash-rack door.
“I can hear you.”
Ratchet’s mouth shut with a clack. He and Drift looked at each other in discomfort.
“…I’m sparked, aren't I?”
Ratchet pressed close to the door, wishing he could just phase through it. “Rodimus, kid, open the door.”
“Oh Primus! I am, aren’t I?” Rodimus exclaimed shakily. “What the slag-!?”
Ratchet started fighting with the door release. The blasted thing wouldn’t budge.
“I can’t raise a sparkling. I don’t even know what they fuel on!”
“Move,” Drift pushed Ratchet aside, and without consulting him in the slightest, brought a leg up and kicked the damn thing off its tracks. Ratchet would probably be annoyed when he had to fix it later, but there was something much more important to worry about than a damaged door.
Inside, Rodimus had wedged himself in the corner, looking as shellshocked as any casualty Ratchet had dragged from the battlefield.
“C’mere!” Ratchet snapped, marching towards him, too stressed for softness or patience. He grabbed Rodimus and pulled him into a fierce hug. Within less than a second, Drift was there too, at his back.
Rodimus seemed to melt into their hold.
“Don’t panic.” Drift told him warmly, his voice calm and gentle and soothing. So unlike Ratchet’s. “I know what sparkling’s fuel on.”
“It’s energon, you idiot.” Ratchet muttered, holding him tight.
“This is not my fault.” Rodimus complained against his chest, whining. Always whining. “One of you, one of you did this. Probably you, Drift,”
Drift shot Ratchet an exasperated look. Ratchet sent him a knowing one back, refusing to stick up for him.
“Let’s not get into how this is obviously Drift’s fault-“
“Ratty!” Drift complained, as Rodimus blurted, “It is!”
“You’re not alone.” Ratchet reassured him. “I’ve got you. We’ve got you.”
He felt Rodimus nod against him, some of the tension leaving his frame. Drift had settled his helm against his shoulder. Ratchet saw him press a kiss to Rodimus’s neck.
“It’s gonna be alright,” Ratchet continued to tell him, because it was. It would be fine. It might even be great.
Rodimus nuzzled into him, and then said in a very tentative, uncharacteristic little voice.
“…Can I move in with you guys?”
Ratchet wanted to say ‘You already have, you moron!’, or an even bolder, ‘We’re in love with you, what do you think?!’
Luckily, it was Drift who answered for them both.
“I’m not giving up the sparring room, so you’ll have to recharge with us.”
“Yeah, figures,” Rodimus lifted his helm, blinking a little bit of brightness back into his optics. “I guess we’re gonna need it for the sparkling anyway, right?”
“Right you are, Rodimus,” Ratchet smirked at Drift’s stricken realisation, pleased than he was not only getting Rodimus and a sparkling out of this situation, but the removal of all of Drift’s ridiculous swords as well.
“Right you are.”