Title: Aegis
Author: Femme4jack
Continuity: Movieverse AU (takes place a few years after 2012, novelization ending assumed, G1 elements, refs. chars. deactivated in canon as still functioning).
Pairing/Characters: Hound/Trailbreaker, Beachcomber/Seaspray, Beachcomber/Hound, Seaspray/Trailbreaker, Carly Spencer, Mikaela Banes, Will Lennox, various OC humans (minor), refs. Hound/Mirage/Trailbreaker, Dino/Hound, Dino/Trailbreaker, Bumblebee/Various, many other moresomes
Rating: Mature

Notes: Written for Synaltern for the TF Gift Exchange using the prompt dedicated pairing/group with an open but secure relationship. Also used the Earth table from the tformers100 community on Livejournal and the 'truly alien sex' request on the LJ kinkmeme.

Thank you Sharpest_Asp (Merfilly on Ao3) for running this amazing exchange!

My sincerest thanks to Fractalserpent and Hopeofdawn for being such amazing betas. They were extremely helpful, encouraging, and the sources of so many awesome ideas, images, wording and flow-suggestions. They are the main reason this story snowballed as much as it did!

Content: Alien sensuality and culture, AU frametype (Distillers), explicit alien form of penetrative interfacing based on internal energon distillation and siphoning (non-sticky and not human analogous), polyamorous culture, moresome with consensual one-sided monogamy on the part of some characters. Refs. to the aftereffects of long term captivity, abuse and rape of unnamed OCs. Refs. fueling as a religious/ritual experience.

Glossary and additional notes on prompts, characters, frametypes, and alts can be found at the end of the fic.

Personal note: I know it seems like I haven't been writing or updating at all! I've actually been writing like crazy, but it was all for the gift exchange, which I can finally de-anon and cross post. I hope you enjoy! Please let me know. This fic is complete and will be posted in 3 chapters (approx 15K words). You don't have to worry about another stalled serial, because this baby is done. Maybe now that the naturebots aren't holding me hostage, I can get back to work on some of the others.

Aegis: A shield or breastplate emblematic of majesty. Also, the protection of a powerful, knowledgeable, or benevolent source.

Beachcomber sat at the overlook, contemplating the striated canyon and the Grand Ronde's winding rush on its inevitable path toward the Snake River. He had a few hours before he needed to travel north, where he would meet Seaspray at the McNary Dam and Lock on the Columbia River in Umatilla. There were things he and Seaspray needed to discuss, and he wanted to have his spark and processors settled before that happened. Normally, the rush of waters beneath him and the wind against his haptics and microturbines would be doing just that, but he was far from centered at the moment.

Seaspray had been finding excuses for increasingly lengthy absences from base, and while Beachcomber couldn't blame him, it was not aiding their situation. Their empty bonds were a constant ache, and the two Distillers needed to make themselves available to court and be courted by the potential Aegismechs, a process requiring both time and proximity. Even if they opted for Bumblebee's option, they would need to forge links to settle their coding requirements. Still, Beachcomber understood - neither of them were coded for confined spaces, nor for the climate of the arid caldera where the Cybertronian-style base/embassy was being built (as interesting as the ancient volcanic preserve was, geologically speaking).

It was a shame, really, that the base on Diego Garcia had been abandoned before the two had even arrived on earth. While the island location had made very little sense strategically speaking for an army comprised primarily of grounders, it would certainly have been a far better fit for the two hydrocolony mechs than northeastern Oregon, especially for Seaspray, who did not have a land alt.

It was far more than that, though. As warm and friendly as he was, Seaspray was having difficulty taking the appropriate steps to forge a new link, or to even form the preliminary connections of friendship with the non-colonial mechs. No matter what larger mech agreed to become his partner, his Aegis would not be another hydroformer, and Seaspray had partnered with Oceanus since they'd onlined. As a result, Seaspray was retreating to the familiar, even if it was a painfully solitary version of it. He felt at home patrolling on the wide stretches of the Columbia, or better yet, the coastlines of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and the depths beyond.

The transition would come easier for Beachcomber. He was amphibious and had an alt that functioned both on land and water, so a grounder Aegis could still share functioning with him in a meaningful way. While Beachcomber, too, felt the call of long expeditions and the wilderness, the lack of an Aegis was becoming extremely uncomfortable, especially as his systems adjusted to the abundance after so much scarcity. The human word "bloated" described the feeling in his distillation tanks all too well as his internal systems eagerly processed the numerous energy sources and materials available on earth into highly concentrated substances vital to Cybertronian life. He was spending more time on base just for the comforting brush of the big mechs' fields, frequently adding the richness of his distiller tanks into the common supplies so that at least he could provide for his larger comrades in that manner.

He'd had more than a few offers to fuel the larger mechs in the more intimate way, at least from those who had the appropriate mods and were familiar with his class's unique function. It was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore his courting protocols as he waited for Seaspray.

It had been long... far too long since his field had been fully enmeshed with that of a larger mech as their frames interconnected, a siphon making its exquisite journey through his channel. He longed to feel the bursts of suction, the sweet rush from his distillation tanks, his own frame shuddering and lighting up in the wash of the larger mech's grateful overloads. His ache for Sandstone was more than just the painfully empty lacuna where a bond should have been. They had been so close, so connected and compatible. The affectionate and protective brush of Sandstone's field had told him exactly what concentrated formulation his partner needed, whether synthegon, lubricants, coolant or other vital fluids. Responding to that with every tool his frame was equipped with had been right on the most fundamental of levels.

Seaspray was a comfort. Their companionship soothed some of the gaping emptiness, but what were two Distillers without big, consumptive and protective partners to look after? Their function, and their need for a dyadic bond were written and hardwired in their coding and frames.

Beachcomber was grateful, though. Oceanus and Sandstone had been bonded to one another, along with several of the other colonials, and through their bond, he and Seaspray were cadre. He was not sure he could have gone on without Seaspray after... after.

The two Distillers had not gone so far as to bond with one another, obviously. That would have felt too fundamentally wrong. Yet, no matter the cultural taboos and coded preferences of their class, spark-shattering grief had necessitated them taking comfort in one another when it seemed that they were, literally, the last Cybertronians left on Aqueous.

It had been just the two of them for so very long, searching for others in first on the vastness of their ocean world and then in the ocean of space.

Now they were far from alone. There was a base full of mechs who were ideal candidates to be their Aegis partners, and a great deal of interest in the rare Distillers. However, if the two really wanted to present as a cadre, both needed to actually be present, and some educating of their larger comrades would be in order. Most of the big mechs did not even know what an Aegis was, even though so many of them were finely suited to the partnership. Distillers had not been common on Cybertron when Energon had flowed from the Allspark itself. They had been engineered for the outer colonies, using their extreme efficiency and oversized sparks to process lesser resources into a format that was usable by their more consumptive partners. When energon and other resources had become scarce, Distillers had become valuable, especially once war broke out. Autobots and Decepticons alike had been guilty of failing to respect the fundamental coding that made Distillers so unique, the former mostly out of cultural misunderstanding, the latter because they simply did not care.

Beachcomber had seen the results of that use among the few Distillers the Autobots had managed to recover, and it was not a memory file he cared to access. Brutally forced to provide a constant supply, his code-kin, some of them close friends from Aqueous, had become little more than drones, the common fueling depots for the Fallen's forces. He was not sure the survivors would ever recover.

It was those memories, vying with the practical solution Bumblebee presented, which robbed Beachcomber of his usual serenity. He knew what he and Seaspray needed in order to heal, but their needs were not necessarily in the best interests of the stunningly few mechs attempting to build a new future on their adopted home. The dyads their coding and sparks longed for were odd, even deviant in Autobot culture. Aegismechs in the colonies had understood their coding needs, and had made the one-sided Distiller monogamy work within the complex relational geometry of their cadres. But it was increasingly clear that the earth-based Autobots might very well find the idea selfish and unnatural.

And maybe they were right.

Beachcomber responded to Seaspray's hail with a few cheerily pinged glyphs of his own when the high speed, submarine-hydrofoil was three miles out, traveling at a relaxed 130 knots. None of the humans at the McNary Lock could hear the hydroformer's alien engines, nor were they likely to glimpse his chameleon armor until he surfaced below them, ready to enter the lock. Beachcomber continued chatting amiably with the Army Corp of Engineers lock operators until Seaspray radioed in on their own channel, greeting them like old friends. They had become quite familiar with the hydroformer since he and Beachcomber had arrived a little over a year ago.

Beachcomber did not have Seaspray's speed on the water, so he had not taken his own terraquad mode to meet him downstream. He and his cadre-mate did, however, plan on an easy cruise through Lake Wallula, the reservoir formed by the McNary Dam. It would give them a chance to reconnect and talk before meeting Trailbreaker and Hound at the decommissioned Hanford Nuclear Reservation where the Autobots were slated to take over the cleanup and restoration of the environmental disaster. The Autobots could easily reprocess the waste and contaminants there into usable fuel and resources, especially with two Distillers available who could take on the necessary mods. They could have started nearly a year ago if not for all the proverbial red tape.

"How was your trip?" lock manager Davis called out as Seaspray's sleek, vaguely shark-like shape made his way into the navigation lock, seventy-five feet below.

"Highly enjoyable," the hydroformer replied even as he extended a docking cable (more to comply with the lock regulations than for any real need). "One of the Vancouver Island orca pods befriended me. I think I was practically adopted."

"Doesn't surprise me," one of the other lock workers called over as she set the gates to close. "I want to adopt you. But I think Beachcomber has dibs."

Beachcomber gave an easy laugh. "Everyone wants to adopt Seaspray, Garcia," he called over the sound of the water pumps. "You should've seen all the different types of wildlife that decided he was one of their own on Aqueous. There were these giant water-breathers, looked a lot like manta rays, but big as blue whales. They thought Spray was their personal cleaner fish."

"The barnacle-like parasites they picked up were actually quite useful, in terms of mineral composition," Seaspray explained. "I could've harvested the materials elsewhere, but why not make friends?"

"Just when I think I've heard it all," Davis said, shaking his head as water continued pumping into the lock, the level slowly rising. "Alien robots who eat barnacles off of blue whale-sized manta rays. What will they come up with next?"

"Not eat, exactly," Seaspray qualified as the water level continued to slowly rise. "More like... break down and absorb. But speaking of eating, Davis, please tell your superiors that I installed the devices that will deter the sea lions from hunting salmon downstream from the Bonneville and get them to head back out to the ocean. It will prove far more effective than the current hazing methods. And I will transmit my report on the human take of wild versus hatchery fish once the tribal authorities have had a chance to review and respond. I'll have a solution to propose to keep the non-hatchery fish out of the nets, but I want to review it with my associates first."

It was shorthand for checking with Prowl to make sure the technology in question did not violate the terms of the treaty. All the parties involved in the ecological dispute had agreed to allow Seaspray to do a scientific survey and propose solutions as an impartial party.

"Will do, Seaspray," Davis said with a casual salute. "Never thought I'd see the day when NOAA, the animal welfare groups, and the tribal fisheries would be able to agree on anything. You did good, kid."

At that, Seaspray used his horizontal rudder assembly (more dolphin-like than shark) to teasingly splash the lock manager.

"If you are going to call someone a million something years your senior a kid, you'd better expect him to act like one," Garcia called from the opposite wall of the lock.

"Just as long as he doesn't spit water like Shamu, I'll overlook it," Davis said, sputtering when a jet of water splashed him. "I... really had that one coming."

"The designation should warn you," Beachcomber said fondly, smiling and watching his cadre-mate as the water continued to rise.

They continued to chat and joke, as well as make inquiries about Garcia's menagerie of pets and Davis's kids until the water in the lock was level with the reservoir upstream from the dam. Beachcomber stepped over the barrier and transformed into his terraquad alt, driving straight into the water with a splash, bobbing up and down next to Seaspray as he shifted his wheels to the side for his aquatic mode.

"Catch you rascals next time!" Davis called, hitting the button that opened the gates of the lock.

"Don't let the big ones step on you!" Garcia added.

Seaspray and Beachcomber laughed and promised to do so, likewise calling out their farewells as they headed up the reservoir. They went at a reasonably fast clip for Beachcomber and a far more leisurely pace for Seaspray, who repeatedly dove beneath Beachcomber and surfaced in front, behind, or to either side.

::Now you are acting like an orca,:: Beachcomber teased on their private channel.

::They were fun company,:: Seaspray commented a bit wistfully, ever aware that he lacked the appropriate partner for deep water voyages. ::Rudimentary auditory language, too. It will be fascinating to watch them continue to evolve, if we get to stay in this system. The pod matriarch gave me a designation.:: Seaspray offered a series of musical clicks and whistles.

::What does it mean?:: Beachcomber asked.

::The best translation I can come up with is What is that? I like it.::

::You've been called that before.::

::Better than, Is that edible? I don't need to go through that again. So how goes it on base? Your field is wound tighter than the tentacles on a dartsucker.::

::That obvious?:: Beachcomber asked sheepishly, willing his field to relax enough to brush against Seaspray's as the submarine surfaced beside him, the triangular fins on either side and his rudder extending downward to form the hydrofoils that helped him skim the surface.

::You're rarely as laid back as other mechs think you are, but something really has you stirred up. Does it start with a Bumble and end with a Bee?:: Seaspray nudged against him, swamping Beachcomber's front end in the process.

::It's going to stir you up, too, Spray, which is probably why I'm so wound. We were right, on most accounts. He was onlined with the revised coding, rather than by his own choice later. His creators felt that Distiller-Aegis dyads were a relic of the past, and edited the binary orientation out before the nanoassemblers were even added to the tank. He formally bonded with Prime's cadre, but rarely turns any mech away, cadre or not.::

::How is it working out for him?:: Seaspray asked, partly fascinated but mostly appalled by the notion, if his field was any indication.

::It's all he knows. But he's never felt... exploited or used, if that is what you're asking. His opinion is that the dyad coding was originally a means for a single, powerful mech to have direct control over a resource that offered an advantage over others. He believes that aspect of Distiller and Aegis coding is distinctly... Decepticon in nature,:: Beachcomber said carefully.

Seaspray's engines roared in response, and he shot ahead a few hundred feet before circling back. ::Try telling that to Distillers who were held by the 'Cons without an Aegis.::

::You don't have to convince me,:: Beachcomber said, with an engine rev of his own. ::And Bumblebee gets that, too. He didn't say anything, but he was briefly held by Megatron. Even then, he feels that Distiller bonding is proprietary in nature on the part of the Aegis, which isn't an Autobot value when it comes to sharing pleasure or resources, and he trusts the Autobots not to exploit him.::

::Then he trusts them more than I do. This war made too many no different from Decepticons. What would happen to Bumblebee if he did decide to stop collecting the proverbial nectar for the hive? What will happen to us, for that matter, if we keep holding out? Don't you think it's telling that both Ratchet and Prime brought up a coding revision?::

::Because they all saw the ways that coding makes us uniquely vulnerable, Spray. I don't believe Optimus would force it on us, though.:: Beachcomber said uncertainly.

::No, perhaps not, but there are gentler ways to leave mecha feeling like they have no choice in the end. I've seen what happens to Distillers without an Aegis. Mine is welcome to share what I provide with any in need or the common tanks, but I will only be opening myself to one mech's siphon. Let the big mechs deal with other big mechs' needs.::

::Then are you ready to start courting?:: Beachcomber asked carefully.

Seaspray slumped a bit in the water. ::There are good mechs on this world, Beachcomber. And I'm already a mess of errors from going this long. It... I just really miss Oceanus. I'm not sure it will ever feel quite right without him. But it's ridiculous to hold off now that we've actually found what we've been looking for so long. And yes, to your next question. I think Hound and Trailbreaker are the best choice in terms of compatibility, at least from what I've seen, and the fact that we will be working with them is an excellent opportunity. You have a preference?::

::I like them both, a great deal. I haven't discussed the matter with them yet. I'm not sure either of them really understand Distiller coding since all they know is Bumblebee and most of their functioning has been in wartime. But they are bonded, they seem open to widening their cadre, or at least they interface outside it. No surprises there. They both enjoy the outdoors and longer expeditions.::

::And your preference?:: Seaspray asked again, pointedly.

::I have one, but I don't want that to impact you. If you feel drawn more strongly to one over the other, you should court him. This is a harder transition for you than for me. I have a land mode. As long as we are still cadre when all is said and done, that's what matters.::

Seaspray responded to that the way he normally did to such sentiments - an affectionate brush against the hull that left Beachcomber's open design a bit swamped.

"So... are you doing what I think you're doing?" the brunette asked as she walked into the room where Carly was scribbling with her stylus on (and in) a cube-shaped holographic mist screen. She appeared to be drawing something that looked a little like a cross between a hugely complex three-dimensional football play... and technical schematics.

"Did you do this, too, when you first met them?" Carly asked.

"And broke Sam's brain trying to figure it out. Though it was simpler then. Not as many," Mikaela replied.

Carly stepped back from her diagram. "So, how far off am I?" she asked. "If I'm really a cultural liaison, I should understand this."

"Well," Mikaela said, slightly amused and a little coy, "part of the fun is in figuring it out. But I'll give you the same hint Jazz gave me - you are thinking in human too much, and too much in terms of pairs."

"Not so," Carly objected, pointing her stylus at the scribbled 'BB', nestled happily in a radiating web of lines - many of them hatched, crossed-out, curvy, or overwritten with little question marks. "I know that Bee, uhm, gets around."

Mikaela snorted at that. "Truth. But the other thing you need to keep in mind is that there are different ways for them to be with each other. You've got the casual interfacing lines pretty good, though there's different methods and degrees. But you'll need cadre bonds, anchoring bonds, guardian bonds, mentor bonds... hold on," Mikaela slid open a compartment and rummaged around until she found one of the styluses that could be formatted. She quickly plugged it into her wrist jack and used her dermal keyboard to adjust its settings. "Use different colors. It's easier."

Carly blinked, looking at the line of colored lights on the side of the new writing implement. "I'm going to need - twelve? Twelve different colors."

"At least," Mikaela said with a bit of a smirk.

Carly shook her head and used the eraser function to begin deleting or adjusting color on some of the lines connecting various Autobots, pausing when she got to a crossed out line connecting two mechs, indicating what she thought had been an amicable break up. There was another line, with a question mark on it leading from the first mech to a third. "So you are saying that some of the mechs I see 'getting it on' in obvious ways may not even be 'with' each other when it comes to other things?"

Mikaela nodded. "Partly. At least that's a good start."

"So Hound and that quiet one - Trailbreaker? - didn't recently break up? Sam told me they were together, but suddenly it was nothing but Hound and the red Ferrari, cabled up all the time. I figured they were a new thing."

"Ferrari's name is Dino," Mikaela explained. "He was badly injured in Chicago - in stasis when Hound and Trailbreaker arrived. Dino's primary code donor, who was also his mentor, was cadre-bonded with those two, and Dino was pretty crushed when he found out that Mirage hadn't arrived with them. I'm sure Trailbreaker has been comforting Dino, too. He just tends to be a bit less out in the open than Hound, at least if humans are about."

"Wait," Carly said, placing the stylus firmly on the projection table. "So you're telling me that Dino's... uncles? step-dads? are comforting him by shagging the hell out of him?"

"Comforting and reconnecting, and I'm sure the comfort goes both ways. You can't impose human family relationships or incest taboos on an alien mechanical species, and I'm not even sure you can really call it shagging," Mikaela said, a bit more sharply than she'd intended, considering the months of confusion she'd had when she first began trying to parse out the intricate web of Autobot relationships. "If Mirage were to turn up tomorrow, Dino would probably reconnect with him in the exact same way."

Carly's eyes widened, then shook her head, "Okay, aliens, I get it." She picked up the stylus and labeled the designations correctly, changing the line between Hound and Trailbreaker to blue, connecting them each to Dino with green. Then she added Mirage, and a magenta line leading to Dino, plus blue lines to Hound and Trailbreaker. "So Dino's mentor isn't dead? The way you talked about him, I assumed..."

"They don't know," Mikaela said sadly, and quickly programmed a stylus of her own. She leaned over Carly's shoulder to tap the blue lines, turning the ones that led to Mirage into a hatch marks. "For a while I thought that when a bond severed, it meant the other mech was gone. But Ratchet explained that sometimes extreme trauma will short circuit a bond - sort of a defense mechanism, to keep from causing too much feedback along the connections. He seemed to think this was especially likely to happen in Mirage's case, but I'm not quite sure why."

"So either way, it isn't good. No wonder they need comforting," Carly said quietly.

"Yeah," Mikaela said, putting down her stylus and grimacing. "My understanding is that Hound and Trailbreaker were both hoping they'd either find Mirage or at least find answers when they got to earth. So yeah, there's comfort going on, and probably the familiarity of reconnecting with someone who shares a great deal of coding with their missing partner."

"So, is Dino... going to bond with them now, too?"

"Not unless their cadres decide to merge," Mikaela said, grabbing her stylus again. She quickly drew blue lines between Dino and two others who were already on the diagram (in completely different quadrants), adding their appropriate designations.

"With... Jolt and Arcee?" Carly said, completely shocked. "I've never even seen any of them together."

Mikaela shrugged, "Bondmates don't have to be in physical proximity to be intimate, though you can sure as hell bet that when they are, things sizzle - literally. The radiation would do us in, so we don't see that kind of interfacing." She gave Carly a sly and calculating look. "Hound does amazing holograms. You could ask him to render a memory file of one of his merges with Trailbreaker if you want to see what it's like."

Carly whirled around to face the other woman. "Oh, like that wouldn't seem completely mental! Going up to a mech I hardly know and asking him to show me his personal pornography collection."

Mikaela smirked, her eyes narrowed slightly in friendly challenge. "You're thinking in human. Besides, Hound loves us organic-types and anything having to do with earth, and he's as patient as they get when it comes to answering questions. Sharing pleasant memory files is totally normal for them. Just a way of... getting to know someone better."

"I think I'll pass... at least for now... until curiosity gets the better of me," Carly said, her face turning red. She quickly swung back around to stare at the mist screen again. "Okay, don't tell me the rest. Not yet. I want to see if I can figure it out." Her attention was drawn to a solitary pair on the bottom right outer quadrant of the diagram, seemingly isolated from the rest. "At least I know about Beachcomber, and... was the submarine Seasplash? They must be together. I've never seen them cabled with anyone else."

"Maybe," Mikaela said carefully, leaning over to change the line between them to immaculate white. "I get the impression those two even confuse the mechs."