Rael

The expression that Cyclonus could feel shaping his mouth and his eyes still felt unnatural on his face, but he no longer cared—he had, in fact, finally begun to welcome it.  His hand came to rest reflexively on the blue hood that protected Tailgate’s head, and he made no effort to squash his expression into something more neutral when Tailgate pulled back slightly to raise his visor.

“Rewind showed me how to upgrade the storage cache on a datapad today. I think I’ve got most of it down now—it’s just getting everything reassembled right that’s tricky.” He bobbed his head back slightly, indicating a datapad lying on the desk with its casing open. “How about you? What’ve you been up to?”

“Nothing remarkable, though I’ve somehow found myself in demand as a sparring partner for those desiring change of pace.” He shifted slightly in Tailgate’s embrace to initiate the move to a berth.

“Oh?” Tailgate released him and followed his lead, hopping up onto the berth closer to the window. Cyclonus removed his sword, setting it in its usual place beside the berth,  and allowed himself a small wince as he settled into the space beside him.

“It was proclaimed, loudly, that other options were proving insufficient. I found I was not averse to the idea.”

Tailgate cocked his head to the side knowingly. “So you enjoyed yourself, then?”

Cyclonus rolled his shoulder joints slightly. “Perhaps a bit.”

Tailgate gave him a long look, then shuffled up onto his knees to lean against Cyclonus’ back.

“But it seems like you’re feeling it a bit now, huh?”

“I’m fine. Anything lingering will be gone by tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh.” Cyclonus felt small fingers rub against the joins of panels midway down his back. “Sure.” Then those small fingers pressed.

The groan that escaped him would have been humiliating if let out in public (though Tailgate’s ensuing giggle would perhaps have been worth it). He found himself forgetting about Tailgate’s enhanced strength all too often.

“You can’t fool me. C’mon, lie down on your front.” Tailgate backed to the far edge of the berth and firmly patted a place in the middle.

Cyclonus had gotten better about picking his battles, so with only a short grumble of resistance, he did as asked.

Tailgate took a seat over Cyclonus’ hips and set to work on the points where his shoulder panels met, loosening taught tensile cables and tipping hydraulic pistons into resetting.

He slowly worked his way down Cyclonus’ back, occasionally venturing out to his arms before returning, and seemingly challenging himself to wring as many small, pleased sounds out of Cyclonus as he could. Before long, Cyclonus found himself eased utterly strutless into the berth, his optics offline, oblivious to the passage of time. Somewhere along the way, Tailgate started quietly humming one of the songs Cyclonus had taught him ages ago (or at least it felt like ages ago, with all that had happened), back when they’d just begun to open up to one another.

Cyclonus eventually mustered up enough processing power to form a complete sentence. “I don’t understand—mmm—how you got quite so good at this.”

“Heh. Some things you don’t have to learn, I guess.”

Tailgate continued on to his lower back, sparing some special attention for the small area in the center. Once he was satisfied with how thorough he’d been there, he made a quick pass back up, and then over to Cyclonus’ arms, before finally sitting back with one last two-handed pat.

Cyclonus cycled a deep ventilation, but he couldn’t quite manage to lift his head when he mumbled a sincere “Thank you.”

Tailgate nudged him over slightly to huddle next to him on the berth, scooting up so their heads were even. When he was settled, Cyclonus curled an arm around his waist, his forearm snug against Tailgate’s lower back.

Recharge was too inviting to resist, but even as shut-down protocols initiated, Cyclonus murmured a thought that had crossed his mind earlier. “You know, most would have simply acquired a new datapad with better capabilities.”

Tailgate knocked his forehead against Cyclonus’ with a soft clink.

He hopped off his hoverboard outside the door (he’d gotten so much better at braking!) and dashed inside. Cyclonus was standing at the window again (the ship hadn’t even moved since the time he’d spent gazing out of it yesterday; you’d think there’d be a limit to how long somebody could stare at the same stars before the pattern got seared into their optical input), but his head turned sharply at the commotion.

Tailgate had gotten a lot better at reading Cyclonus’ subtle facial expressions, so he could detect a hint of inquisitiveness about Tailgate’s haste.

“So,” he started, gearing himself up, “the other week, when Nautica was talking about people getting paint alterations depicting things that were important to them, I started thinking. About how cool that sounded, and about what’s really important to me, I mean. I knew exactly what I would get, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so today I went to Ten and got him to paint a design for me.”

Cyclonus seemed to have frozen in place. Tailgate took a few hasty steps to join him at the window. He had made it this far—it was the moment of truth now.

“This is what I got.” He turned around to show Cyclonus his back, and the depiction of the sleek purple aircraft zooming across the lower portion of it.

There was a tense moment of anticipation, and then he shivered as a pointed fingertip grazed over the plating near the edge of the image.

“The, ah, the topcoat is still curing.” The fingertip moved a safer distance away, but didn’t leave his back. Cyclonus still hadn’t said anything, though. Tailgate craned his body around to catch Cyclonus’ reflection in the window, but those red optics were staring at Tailgate’s back like they usually stared at the stars, lost to introspection.

“Well?”

Cyclonus gave a small jerk and seemed to come back to himself. Tailgate turned back around to face him with a hopeful quirk to his visor. “Do you— Do you like it?”

Tailgate thought he heard Cyclonus reset his vocalizer. “I feel…undeserving of representation on your body, Tailgate, and of your regard.”

Well, that wasn’t a rejection at least, right? Right?

“However, I feel you deserve to know that I…” Tailgate may have gotten good at recognizing Cyclonus’ facial expressions, but this was a pretty new one. Discomfiture, maybe.

Tailgate was left puzzled as Cyclonus’ arms reached over his head, hesitating once before continuing on, and removed the sword from his back. After resting it against the wall, he turned away, mirroring Tailgate’s earlier movement, and knelt down and leaned forward slightly. Curious, Tailgate took a step closer.

There, on the center of Cyclonus’ back, right above the start of his tassets, sat a small representation of a rounded, white vehicle.

“Cyclonus!” he gasped. He fought the urge to bring his hands to his faceplate but failed immediately.

“Hmm?”

“It’s me!”

“Yes.” OK, Tailgate could definitely pick up a bit of satisfaction in his tone now.

“How long have you had it?”

“Since, ah, since the week the subject came up.”

“And you hid it behind your sword this whole time?” He resisted the urge to give Cyclonus a swat to his shoulder and succeeded this time. “No wonder I kept feeling like Ten was smirking at me on the inside the whole time—you got him to do yours too, didn’t you?”

Cyclonus still hadn’t turned back around yet, so Tailgate stepped around and planted himself in front of him, meeting Cyclonus’ eyes as the other replied.

“There aren’t many on the ship who are both artistically inclined and discreet.” There was still a slight quirk to Cyclonus’ lips, but it disappeared as his gaze dropped to Tailgate’s hands.

Cyclonus picked them up in his larger ones and just held them there, and Tailgate felt a little like his ventilation system was seizing. This was an opportunity. He had to take it.

“Can we talk? About this? About us? Please?”

Cyclonus brought Tailgate’s hands to his lips and met his gaze again. “I think it is past time we did.”