[fic]: Just One More Day
Title: Just One More Day
Series: IDW
Rating: M/NC-17
Characters: Sinnertwin/Cutthroat
Summary: Cutthroat is spurned by a lover, and Sinnertwin takes one for the team. Tactile robot smut.
Notes: Yes, the most original title I've come up with to date. Written for tf_rare_pairing , prompt: Cutthroat/Sinnertwin - “Just one more day.” Once again, I'm veering off and making up stuff on the Terrorcons based on their vague canon bios. Timeline-wise, this could take place at any point before the Infiltration arc.
Sinnertwin turned the data pad around in his hands, restless and bored. He wished recharge would come to him as easily as it did the others, but it would stay just that: a wish. Even during a quiet cycle, there was too much activity in the Hub to let him relax. Too much noise, too much movement, making him wonder who was going where, why and for what purpose.
None of the other Terrorcons worried about those things, which Sinnertwin had slowly learned to accept. They didn't seem to think those footsteps echoing down the hall could belong to an Autobot (“In the middle of the Command Hub?” Rippersnapper would laugh. “You've got more than few crossed wires.”) or some agent from Banzai-Tron's secret service. It wasn't like they had a whole lot of friends - visitors could very well be enemies. They were legitimate concerns.
Unfortunately, they also tended to prevent him from recharging properly. It left him strung out and jumpy, but at least he was prepared. At least he could defend his teammates if such a need should arise. Too much, though - well, he was useless when he was exhausted. Sinnertwin knew he was rapidly approaching that thin line between hyper awareness and a full blown melt down. He needed to start cycling down his sensors now, before that happened.
Tossing the data pad to the table, he laid flat on his back on the couch, optics focused on the ceiling of their common room. The lights were already off - he didn't need them to try and wade through the illiterate mess that was Blot's mission report. The good thing about insomnia, Hun-Grrr had said, was that he could get through the paperwork that would otherwise be neglected.
Not exactly Sinnertwin's idea of a good time, but Hun-Grrr, as usual, was right. If he could focus on the reports, then he could shut out the noise of the Hub. It helped him repress that instinctual urge to prowl, to look for something that wasn't there. Faulty programming, Rippersnapper called it. Gave him character, Hun-Grrr said. Sinnertwin went with Hun-Grrr's definition.
He stared at the ceiling. The ceiling stared back.
Venting once in agitation, Sinnertwin tried again to block out the excess noise. The sound of the hydraulic lift down the corridor, the shuffle of someone pacing in a nearby room, repair droids scurrying through maintenance shafts, the hum of electricity through the wires -
Sinnertwin shut off his optics, pressing his hands against his audios, trying to pull back into himself, just long enough to stop the incessant buzzing of everything around him.
He figured once everything was in its place in his mind, he could shut down. He could hear the steady, rhythmic ventilations from Hun-Grrr, Rippersnapper shifting on his recharge berth to get comfortable, something rattling in Blot's intakes, and -
Sinnertwin sat bolt upright, straining to listen. Cutthroat's room was a void of silence. Sinnertwin sprang to his feet, darting down the short hallway that led to their individual recharge rooms. He cycled the door open, finding nothing. Cutthroat was gone.
No, this wasn't good at all. They'd all been in here when he turned off the lights. How could Cutthroat get past him? He hadn't heard anything, hadn't smelled anything -
Sinnertwin felt a flutter of panic at the thought that something had slipped past him. Something as large and obvious as his own fragging teammate. Oh, he was going to love figuring out how Cutthroat had gotten by him.
First order of business - he checked the team comm, finding Cutthroat was still active, but was blocking any incoming messages. That meant he was probably on one of his jaunts, and didn't want to be bothered. Well, Sinnertwin thought, that was just too bad, wasn't it? He couldn't possibly recharge unless he knew where Cutthroat was, so he was going to have to drag him back to their quarters himself.
Sinnertwin hardly needed to use a tracking beacon, or check the Hub's visual logs to find out where his teammate had gotten off to this time. It was a simple matter of following his scent out into the corridor and through the halls of the recharge quarters. Hysteria would start to itch just beneath the surface if his search came up empty, but Sinnertwin knew his limits as well as his capabilities. Nothing to worry about.
He sidestepped a boxy repair droid that veered down the hall with a hiss and a jump. Fragging little things were no bigger than his fist, but they got everywhere. Sinnertwin didn't like them, no matter how functional they were around the Command Hub. They could go places he couldn't, and that bothered him.
Cutthroat's trail led him a lot further into the Hub than Sinnertwin was happy about. Usually Cutthroat went to a specific haunt, or even went outside. How he tolerated the zero grav, Sinnertwin would never know, but he wasn't about to question it. So long as he came back, Sinnertwin didn't think it really mattered.
The trail ended three levels down and six corridors in, and Sinnertwin found himself standing in front of a supply closet. Well, this was new. Sulking in closets now? He couldn't decide if he was surprised at the presence of a second scent or not, and settled for intrigued.
The door cycled open without hesitation, and there was Cutthroat, arms crossed over his chassis, slouched on a bench. 'Sullen' barely described the look camped on his face, and it made Sinnertwin rethink sharing space with him. Cutthroat didn't even look up when he walked into the supply closet, giving the racks a nervous glance. There were unused maintenance droids stored in here, the creepy little things.
“Having fun?” Sinnertwin asked, tearing his optics away from the droids to try and focus on his teammate. Cutthroat shot him a nasty look, before ducking his head, frown deepening.
“He said -” Cutthroat snarled, wing tips quivering in rage. “He said that just one more day with me was going to kill him. It was entirely -”
Cutthroat stopped, frowning, his optics fixed on the floor, as if it would prevent him from saying anymore. Sinnertwin waited for him to just spill it already, but then they might be here until the nearest sun burned out.
“Well,” he said, fidgeting. “What was wrong with that?”
Wrong question, was what it was. Sinnertwin barely had time to recoil as Cutthroat lashed out at him with one hand, talons whistling through the air between them.
“What's wrong with that!” Cutthroat spat, wings snapping back against his body. “It's - do you have any idea what it's like to be used like that!”
“Uh,” said Sinnertwin, straightening up when Cutthroat didn't go for him again. “Yeah?”
Some of Cutthroat's anger deflated at that. He didn't even have to spell it out and Sinnertwin knew what he was talking about. He knew what he felt - to a degree. What they had in common was what made them Terrorcons. Beyond that, well... that was why they listened to Hun-Grrr.
Now that Cutthroat looked slightly less murderous, Sinnertwin risked sitting down next to him, careful not to bump his wing. It was a bit weird for his wings to be out, considering he was sitting in a cramped supply closet. But there was that second scent to think about, and Sinnertwin thought even Blot could figure out whoever Cutthroat had been fragging had just dumped him.
The close proximity lasted all of ten astroseconds, when Cutthroat sprang up, wings snapping in Sinnertwin's face. Unimpressed, Sinnertwin grabbed Cutthroat's wrist and hauled him back, so that the lightweight flier landed right in his lap. There was a moment of valiant struggling, but once he had his arms around Cutthroat's waist, he was stuck. Most of the squirming stopped when Sinnertwin pressed his lips to Cutthroat's neck.
“Come on,” Sinnertwin said, pulling Cutthroat further into his lap, who braced his arms against the yellow chassis, spreading his legs and wings. “What did he do that you liked?”
“Don't you do a damned thing that he did,” Cutthroat hissed, talons curling into Sinnertwin's armor. Fair enough, Sinnertwin thought, but it was going to be harder to avoid such things if he didn't know what they were. He'd find out when Cutthroat tried to take his head off.
Ducking his head, Sinnertwin dragged his tongue up the crest centered on Cutthroat's chassis. Cutthroat inhaled sharply, talons trembling before digging in tighter. He pressed his face into Cutthroat's neck again, alternating between licking and kissing the cables. Moving his hands up Cutthroat's sides, his fingers teased at the seam his wings sprouted from, and waited for a reprimand. Surely the other mech had done this, and he would get angry.
Cutthroat moaned; not so bad, then. A bit bolder now, Sinnertwin slid one arm up between the wings, his other hand tightening around Cutthroat's waist, pinning them together. Another staggered moan escaped from Cutthroat, who released his hold on Sinnertwin's chest in favor of gripping his shoulders. Sinnertwin licked his way up Cutthroat's jawline, optics flicking to his face, watching for signs of aggression or anger. All he saw was a distant stare, lips parted as Cutthroat vented ever hotter gusts of air against him.
Satisfied, Sinnertwin dragged his hand down between the wings, not shy about how hard he pressed into the metal. The mech squirmed against him, energy field tingling against Sinnertwin's, his own frame heating as Cutthroat's lighter body slid against his. In terms of weight and armor, the rest of the Terrorcons outclassed Cutthroat completely, but that was no reason to write him off as harmless.
Case in point: when Sinnertwin's fingers spread over the flat expanse of one wing, Cutthroat's talons raked over and across his back. Sinnertwin bit down a growl of discomfort, steeling himself as those claws sank into his armor again. The worst he could do was scratch the paint and enamel, unless he started clawing at the transformation seams. Which, Sinnertwin knew from experience, was bound to happen sooner rather than later.
He traced the bottom edge of a wing with his index finger and thumb, and Cutthroat rocked against him violently. Cutthroat's whole frame ground against him, the growl in his throat as menacing as it was arousing. Tilting his head up, Sinnertwin caught Cutthroat's open mouth in a deep kiss, that fierce growl staggering into a moan. It didn't last long - that sort of intimacy was rejected by Cutthroat on a regular basis - but Sinnertwin found a set of talons pressing his face forward, into Cutthroat's neck once again.
What happened next was entirely reflexive - whatever he did to a particular wing flap set Cutthroat off, and suddenly two fuel lines had been sliced and warm energon was dripping down Sinnertwin's back. He bit into Cutthroat's neck cables to stifle a yowl, tasting coolant, his arms holding Cutthroat close as the flier thrashed through his overload. It was the way that Cutthroat's wings beat against the walls and the snap of his energy field that pushed Sinnertwin into his own overload, the talons biting into his back cables completely incidental.
Cutthroat didn't relax, but his wings came down around them, wrapping around so tight they cut out nearly all the light in the small room. Sinnertwin felt Cutthroat curl into him, his slight frame feeling, for once, very small and vulnerable.
Okay. This was kind of weird.
Weird, but it didn't last long. Cutthroat's wings whipped back behind him, and he pushed himself off of Sinnertwin. The familiar expression of the usual vaguely offended disdain had settled back onto his face.
“Better?” Sinnertwin asked, even though he knew he ought to keep his mouth shut. Maybe Cutthroat would need another round - and then he'd be pliable enough to drag back to their quarters.
“Shut up,” Cutthroat snapped, using his wings to cover the fact that he was trying not to wobble. Just like Sinnertwin knew he would, Cutthroat had overextended himself. Which meant he'd worked out most of the tension of getting shot down by his mystery closet friend.
Not so much of a mystery to Sinnertwin, though. The distinctive scent was all over Cutthroat, and still hung in the air here. “Look,” he said. “It is better this way, right? You shouldn't be messing with Divebomb anyways.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Sinnertwin managed to duck just as Cutthroat went at him again, this time with claws and wings. Most of it glanced off of his armor, but one wing cut deep into his arm, sparking wildly. By the time he could react or defend himself, it was over, and Cutthroat was already out the door.
Sinnertwin stared at the empty threshold, rubbing one hand over the new cut. It reminded him to give himself a once over, but the damage wasn't that big of a deal. Nothing he wasn't used to. Repair nanites would seal up the gouges in his back in no time, but he didn't fancy dripping vital fluids down the halls. No, that would attract those horrible little repair droids -
He shot a paranoid look towards the ones on the shelves, but they were inactive, thankfully not self aware enough to know what had happened in their supply closet. Still, he was going to have to make certain Cutthroat went back to their quarters, and not out another adventure. He could always threaten to tell Hun-Grrr about his fling with Divebomb - Predacons were off limits, for more than enough perfectly sane, logical reasons.
That was the problem, Sinnertwin thought, heaving himself up off the bench. Cutthroat and Divebomb weren't Seekers, but they were fliers, and there was no hope of understanding them. Sinnertwin rubbed one hand over his face, the bout of interfacing bringing his exhaustion level to the brink. He'd have to worry about the dynamics of that relationship some other time. Right now, he could certainly agree with the sentiment that just one more day with Cutthroat would surely kill him.