IMPORTANT!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE THE STORY!!!

I have crossed The Line. That's right, The Line. This isn't just any Transformers fanfiction; no, it's a Transformers fanfiction of another Transformers fanfiction! Seriously. The fanfiction is "Difficult Things" by Dreaming of Everything, and I think you should go read it. Right now, preferably. I don't usually read romance fics, but the characterization is excellent. Plus I like Sunstreaker (he's such a jerk).

Go.

Now.

By the way, I got permission from Dreaming of Everything to post this, so I'm not a shameless plagiarist.

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"The Measure of Beauty"

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That Hound had caught up with Sunstreaker was now only moderately surprising where it would once have been a completely ludicrous concept. Sunstreaker was, of course, not well-known for his patience or adherence to social niceties or anything, really, that could be likened to a modicum of consideration for anyone other than his brother. But he seemed to be trying—in his own, incredibly abrasive way—to make himself a tad more inoffensive or, rather, a tad less offensive, at least (because Sunstreaker just did not go with inoffensive, in any sense of the word), and Hound was finding that being allowed to catch up with Sunstreaker was almost starting to become a nearly common occurrence.

Maybe.

So the really shocking part was how Hound found Sunstreaker when he finally did catch up to him. He was standing on a slight rise in the otherwise flat landscape with his head tilted up and every diode of his being focused on the sky. The sun was setting, and Hound supposed the way the vibrant light played off a smattering of clouds was lovely but he was too distracted by the way the light played off Sunstreaker to pay it much mind.

He supposed he'd always known, objectively, that Sunstreaker was an attractive mech—certainly he'd be the object of pursuit of a great many Autobots if he wasn't so violently reclusive—but the fact had never struck him quite so hard before. Sunstreaker's vanity was well-known, as was the attentiveness (nearing obsession) with which he kept himself carefully buffed and polished, and the result in the dying light was that he practically glowed, bright yellow softened to burnished bronze in the last streaks of sunlight.

And his posture was utterly unaggressive.

That was the shocking part. Sunstreaker had earned an alarming reputation for his brutality and quick temper. To see him so…passive was…surreal.

Not to mention the fact that he was—and there was no other word for it—gaping.

Hugely.

In fact… In fact, if it had been anyone else, anyone at all, Hound would have said he looked…awestruck.

But this was Sunstreaker, who made no attempt to conceal his utter disgust with the entirety of the little organic planet on which they found themselves stranded, so that was certainly not the case. It was far, far more likely, actually, that he was mistaken (incredibly so) in reading Sunstreaker's expression, though he hadn't really had trouble with that before.

Hound approached (cautiously) but was not acknowledged (it would probably have been more surprising if he had been greeted anyway).

"Sunstreaker?" he said, tentative (because after all, Sunstreaker not behaving normally, as he was now, was generally a cause for concern—but of course, the same could generally be said of his normal behavior).

That broke the spell, or whatever it was that held Sunstreaker in such a daze, and his gaze turned speculative as he began to rummage blindly through his subspace. He searched entirely by touch, still focused intently on the sunset, and flung various odds and ends (and unpleasant-looking weaponry that had Hound edging backwards anxiously) to the dusty ground (and something was definitely strange about Sunstreaker allowing his precious possessions to be so defiled).

Sunstreaker seemed to find what he was looking for in several different types of gleaming sheet metal. He held them against the dazzling backdrop of the sky and contemplated them with such intensity that he seemed to be trying to bore holes in them with the force of his gaze. The steely gray sheet was quickly discarded, and Sunstreaker turned the two superior plates to and fro in the light before carelessly dropping the copper square in favor of its brassy gold twin.

But Sunstreaker's task apparently did not end there, as he jammed one arm back into his subspace up to his shoulder. After producing another unnerving array of death-inducing devices, he triumphantly fished out two large jars and proceeded to…plop himself on the ground.

The extremely organic ground.

Utterly perplexed, Hound watched in bewilderment as Sunstreaker slathered the translucent, gelatinous contents of one jar haphazardly across one side of the chosen plate of sheet metal. "What…is that?" he ventured cautiously when it became apparent that no reason for this bizarre behavior was forthcoming.

"Bonding agent," Sunstreaker muttered tersely as if that explained everything. After groping about on the ground until his wandering fingers stumbled upon a cloth (discarded when rooting through his subspace earlier), he wiped at the middle of the sheet and studied the result with a critical optic.

Seemingly satisfied, he scooped up a glob of whatever was in the second container—another gel (white this time) of some sort, though its purpose was as unfathomable as the first's—and began to delicately dab it on the same side of the sheet metal. With a start, Hound realized that the cloth being used to complete this task was a polishing rag, of which Sunstreaker was often violently protective. It wouldn't be fit for scrap after…whatever it was he was using it for.

"What, ah… What are you doing?" Hound asked hesitantly, loathe to attract the attention of a possibly insane mech but positive that his logic circuits would melt without some sort of explanation.

"Laying down the base layer," Sunstreaker answered absently. "Gotta do it before the bonding agent hardens or it won't adhere." He stared intently at the…stuff and muttered distantly, "Gotta make sure it's even or the molding won't be level."

The "molding," as it turned out, was yet more of the white gel that Sunstreaker used his fingers (with no small amount of mess—what in Primus' name was going on?) to shape into ridges and valleys atop the base layer. Once that was completed, Sunstreaker rooted around in his subspace again, this time producing a…tool kit. A tool kit that, when opened revealed itself to contain a variety of styluses and other equipment typically used by artists.

Hound reset his optics several times at that; it would make far more sense that they were fritzing and producing extremely strange hallucinations than to accept that this was actually happening.

But the image they presented him was the same as before.

"Um… Ah… What's, er… What are you doing now?" Hound asked, because something had to be said, if only to break the silence with something other than the scrabbling of Sunstreaker rummaging through…art supplies.

"Therma-gel," Sunstreaker said with a preoccupied air, completely oblivious to Hound's consternation as he gestured at the white gel, "is very sensitive to temperature." He selected something that resembled a narrow arc welder and furroughed his brow at it thoughtfully. "It changes color depending on how much heat is applied, how quickly it's applied, and what type of energon is used in the combustion process. Mid-grade, I think." He frowned. "Should probably mix in a little higher grade. More luminescence."

It suddenly occurred to Hound as he watched Sunstreaker digging around in the art box that he was dreaming. Certainly, dreams among Cybertronians were incredibly rare and generally consisted of old memories dragged up by misfiring electrodes, but it made more sense than…this. Though how his processor had managed to fabricate an image of Sunstreaker behaving so peaceably was beyond him. He should probably see Ratchet when he woke up…

Sunstreaker had stopped fiddling with the welder and was staring down at his…thing with focused intensity (and not his usual "don't frag with me if you want to stay out of the scrap heap" intensity either, but something of a more speculative, anticipatory kind). Secure in his newfound reassurance that none of this was actually happening, Hound meandered away to wander an exploratory path around the dreamscape as a flicker a flame burst from the tip of the torch. It was a very realistic dream (though he'd never had another to compare it with and determine if this was the exception or the norm), and he marveled at accuracy with which his processor recreated the Earth flora and fauna typical to one of his more frequent patrols with Sunstreaker.

No longer fearful of premature deactivation, Hound turned back to face his partner. The sun was almost set now, and the tiny arc of scarlet on the horizon seemed to wreath Sunstreaker's hunched form in flames. Cautiously (because he didn't want to be painfully mauled, even if it wouldn't actually happen—though Sunstreaker seemed too involved in whatever it was he was doing to pay anything else the least bit of mind), Hound edged forward until he was peering over Sunstreaker's shoulder at something entirely unexpected.

"It's black," he said, bewildered, and indeed, the molding Sunstreaker had carefully crafted was completely charred.

"S'the crust," Sunstreaker grunted, watching the burnt mess intently. "S'posed to be that way. It'll flake soon…"

As if cued, minute cracks started to run through the blackened gel. Optics narrowed appraisingly, Sunstreaker raised the sheet of metal toward his face, drew in a deep breath, and blew.

Great, crusted flakes of black peeled away to reveal a myriad of purples and reds. At first glance there seemed to be only bold block of those hues, but upon closer observation, Hound realized that subtle swirls of gold and blue mixed together to create an effect very like the sunset that had just died. A huge, crimson semi-circle with flecks of yellow and burnt orange that followed the textured patterns in the molding rested against the bottom edge of the square of sheet metal. It was rimmed in bronze and might have been a portrayal of the sun if the colors weren't so vibrant. The bottom half of the image was a dwindling spiral of everything from pink to yellow to maroon, with tendrils of violet winding in from above to meld the bold sunlight with the subtler hues of the night sky. Pale—almost white—yellows, blues, and pinks speckled the broad expanse of indigo in a fashion that seemed almost modeled on stars (except that no star gave the appearance of being both infinitely far away and close enough to grasp). The brighter colors caught the dim starlight from above and practically glowed, while the darker hues constantly battled to swallow the light up. The contrast was striking. There was only one way to describe it.

"Beautiful," Hound breathed, awestruck.

"Of course it is," Sunstreaker growled, sounding much more like his real self than he had a moment ago. "I made it. You don't know what you're talking about, though." He glared down at the gorgeous array. "It's sloppy. I'm…out of practice."

He was turned away, rooting through the art box again, when he spoke so Hound couldn't see his face, but he sounded…not quite sad, but exceptionally displeased, at the very least. Maybe even disappointed.

"It seems more real than the real thing," Hound murmured. "I mean, it's beautiful, but it doesn't look like the sunset."

"Why would it?" Sunstreaker snorted derisively (but less derisively, perhaps, than he might have). "If I just wanted a copy of it I'd have used an image-capturer. There's no challenge in imitation." He selected a small bottle with some sort of nozzle and shook it. "A true artist looks beyond the surface to see what others can't. And he shows them what they're missing."

"What's that?" Hound asked as Sunstreaker sprayed the entire piece with the clear contents of the bottle.

"Just a gloss," he murmured, utterly caught up in his work. "It'll lock in the coloration so it won't be affected by temperature anymore, and it'll harden to prevent the grain from deteriorating."

It also seemed to deepen the various textures it coated, and subtler hues that followed the ridges and valleys stood out more distinctly.

Hound reached out, fingers hovering just above the brassy halo around the sun, and quite suddenly realized that he couldn't be dreaming. There was no way his processor could conjure up an image so unutterably sublime.

"What… Why spend all that time picking out the metal for the base," he heard himself asking from what sounded like a long way away. "No one would know if it was copper instead of bronze. No one will see."

"I would know," Sunstreaker responded with a frown. "And you can see it around the sun."

Hound barely brushed his fingertips against the smooth metal. "How did you do it?" he asked wonderingly.

"That? I just didn't put any bonding agent down there so the molding wouldn't adhere and the base metal would show through. Same with my signature."

Hound glanced at the bottom right-hand corner where, barely visible among the yellow and gold, there was a bronze flourish that, if one squinted and knew what it was supposed to say, was the Cybertronian glyph for Sunstreaker.

"I meant all of it," Hound said, shaking his head. "This whole thing. It was completely black. How could you know what it would look like underneath?"

Sunstreaker stared at him in a manner which suggested even the most freshly-sparked protoform should know this. "I remembered." Hound looked down at the infinite, intertwining tendrils of color skeptically. "I guess it takes a little practice too. Just to know what temperature makes what color. I had a lot of practice, back before the war."

"You were an artist?" If this was sloppy by his standards, the idea was very plausible indeed.

Sunstreaker glared at him fiercely. "Don't spread it around." Because he had a reputation, Hound understood, and this was not part of it. "I was pretty popular with the tower-mechs," who, Hound recalled, were notoriously picky about these types of things, "so Mirage probably knows, but he doesn't talk about it. No one else, though."

Except Sideswipe, but saying that would have been ridiculously redundant.

"It's glowing," Hound murmured, entranced.

"It's reflective," Sunstreaker corrected, snorting disdainfully. "Light has always been the subject and medium of choice among Cybertronian artists. How it contrasts with darkness. But there's only so many ways to look at the spires of Polyhex beneath the night sky before it gets boring." He looked up, and his gaze was focused far away. "This planet's too organic to be beautiful, but it has so much atmosphere…" He looked almost dreamy, intoxicated on possibilities. "Light never did anything like that back on Cybertron."

Hound stared back down at the artwork and noticed how it ended right where the horizon would have been and the clouds he remembered in the sky had been reduced—or perhaps elevated—to mere distortions of light, something to interrupt the flaming spirals and add discord. It was utterly perfect by Cybertronian standards, not a trace of anything organic in sight.

"I like organic things too, though," Hound found himself saying mildly. "Because they're not perfect." That broke Sunstreaker's dazed state and he glared (but it was a confused glare, something Hound doubted if anyone other than Sunstreaker could pull off). "There's a human concept called wabi-sabi. Finding beauty in imperfection. It makes sense, to me, to admire the constant potential to be more instead of a suspended state of perfection."

It was a blasphemous idea by Cybertronian standards and Hound expected Sunstreaker to react accordingly, but he just looked up thoughtfully, brow furrowed.

"To each his own," he said finally, shrugging.

Hound didn't have it in him to be surprised anymore. He turned back to the piece and was struck for the first time by the subtle intricacies where light met dark. It seemed as if he could look at it forever and keep noticing new things.

"It's still beautiful," Hound said sincerely, and Sunstreaker hesitated a moment before standing up.

"If you like it that much, you can have it," he muttered gruffly. "I was just gonna scrap it anyway."

Hound watched as Sunstreaker grumbled that the only solvent that would be able to clean his hands would strip the paint off as well. He remembered how different Sunstreaker had looked when possessed of a creative spirit rather than cast in the usual light of destruction and thought that, for a species that prided itself on its ability to be more than meets the eye, they seemed to forget with alarming frequency the need to look at things incisively.

Hound smiled softly as he accepted the indescribably gorgeous artwork Sunstreaker held aloft with practiced—but transparent—disdain and tacitly admired the luminescent reflection of stars on yellow plating.

"Thank you."

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A/N: In case you haven't done this yet, go read Dreaming of Everything's "Difficult Things." It's not strictly necessary to get what was going on above, but it's excellent.

I have been trying to write this story forever. I think Sunstreaker as an artist is adorable (yes, I know there's zero canon evidence for it), but it seems to me that aliens would have alien methods of creating art (most of the stories I've read have him painting or sketching or using some other human medium). So I made up my own alien art technique. Ta-da.

This was description practice for me (because I really need the practice in that area—there's only so many ways to say "swirls of color" before it gets boring) and I'd love to know how I did (hint, hint). :)

Until next time,

--BlackMarketTrombones