Title: An Accidental Love Story

Warnings: Illness, molestation, consent issue?, being too tired to put up with anyone's crap.

Rating: PG?

Continuity: G1, "A Taste for Security" spin-off

Characters: Cliffjumper, Mirage, Jazz

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors (or scenery), nor does it make a profit from the play. Artist and author did not actually try to kill each other.

Motivation (Prompt): 2 kinkmeme prompts

(Quick summary: Some Autobot (A) has a kink for sexing up his partner while said partner (B) is sleeping/out of it. They get B unconscious somehow and A has some fun. And then somebody walks in on them and assumes the worst. B can't or doesn't wake up to back up A's case, and everything sort of goes to hell.)

(Late at night, maybe after a party or an angsty bing on high grade, some mech fell asleep in the empty rec room. Their secret admirer, maybe back from late patrol or unable to sleep or something, finds them. Not one to let such a glorious opportunity pass, he decides to have some fun with his sleeping crush.)

[ * * * * * ]

Part Four: An Eventful Nap

(In which Cliffjumper doesn't even care what's going on.)
'Oblivion is just easier to deal with.'

[ * * * * * ]

It hadn't been a good day for Cliffjumper.

The good news was that the Autobots had given as good as they'd gotten. Better, in fact. Mixmaster's collaborative effort with Shockwave had backlashed in a big way once Blaster managed to infect Soundwave. While Megatron's focus had been on taking out Optimus Prime with the virulent mash-up of virus program and chemical compound, Blaster had aimed for a larger target.

Optimus accidentally infected about a third of the Autobots via innocent contact after the battle. Soundwave, on the other hand, spied on every Decepticon on Earth via small touches of telepathy at any given opportunity, and physical contact plus transmission had given the contagion a perfect conduit to infect through. Megatron had rallied the troops together in preparation for attacking the weakened Autobots, and that had been the end of it. Where the Autobots had locked down the Ark in order to concentrate on isolating and curing their infected mechs, the Decepticons hadn't been prepared at all for a mass infection via Communication Officer, and their ranks weren't cut out for calm reactions to collapse. Organized care been pushed aside in favor of panic.

When last seen, Starscream had been the most mobile of the Decepticon Elite. That hadn't been saying much, but the Air Commander had managed to boot Jazz off the Victory because the saboteur had been laughing too hard to get away when the weakly - if angrily - screeching flyer shoved him into the launching tower and sealed the door behind him.

So that was the good news. A third of the Autobots were out of commission and busy being miserable, but at least the Decepticons were worse off. They'd think twice before manufacturing a contagion again.

The bad news was what the nasty thing did.

Depending on how much of the chemical compound the virus convinced a mech's own body to manufacture, the damage was anywhere from glitching internal systems to liquefied tubing. Ratchet had discovered the infection running rampant through Optimus' body, notified Red Alert of his diagnosis, and put the medbay on high alert before passing out from his fuel pump's primary fuel lines melting. First Aid and Hoist had immediately taken over. They'd saved both Prime and Ratchet, but the spread of the infection hadn't been pretty. The medbay was a mess of gooey internal parts left on the floor in the rush to save lives, and there were enough mechs in intensive care that Cliffjumper had been able to escape with minimum fuss.

Well, more like blearily glaring Hoist into admitting that there was no real reason for him to stay on an uncomfortable medbay berth when self-repair could handle any future short-circuits. The antidote had been administered, and everyone was inoculated against further infection. It was just a matter of dealing with the aftermath. Escape via logic and an overly crowded medbay wasn't high drama, but hey. Whatever worked.

The question was what to do now that he was out. Tired and rather pained, the Minibot used the wall to prop himself up as he stumbled down the corridor. Going back to his room was out of the question because Red Alert had everything prepped for decontamination as soon as Wheeljack finished assisting in surgery. That meant bunking with someone, preferably someone with a nicer berth than the circuit-slabs the medbay used. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and tiredly dimmed his optics, trying to think.

Mirage? Special Operations was running most of the Autobot army at the moment, since both Prowl and Ironhide had been taken out in the secondary wave of infection from close contact with Prime. No on Mirage, therefore, because Cliffjumper's auxiliary powerplant wasn't generating enough charge to power his communication array. It was barely keeping him on his feet at the moment. Wherever Mirage was, it probably wasn't his quarters, and Cliffjumper wasn't going to be able to trek all the way to that end of the ship and keep going if the door was locked. Gears, maybe? That was close to here…no, wait, he wanted to rest. Gears could manage sympathy enough to let him collapse on his berth, but mere sympathy wouldn't be enough to shut the nonstop complaining up. No on Gears, too.

Cliffjumper raised his head and was distantly surprised to find that he had to reboot his optics to bring them back online. According to the readout sluggishly giving him system updates, he'd dozed off, slipping into powersave mode right here standing in the hall. He reset his optics a couple times and tried to recall who bunked near this corridor. Where was he, anyway?

It took his depleted, slow processor a few minutes to connect the door he was absently staring at with a location.

Or he could crash in the common room. That was always an option. It wasn't sealed for decontamination, and since the remaining two-thirds of the Autobots were pulling extra duty shifts to cover for the laid up mechs, there wouldn't be a lot of traffic beyond maybe fetching rations from the energon dispenser. Most mechs were normally considerate about volume if they saw someone passed out on the couch. Right now, they'd probably pass the word to keep it quiet if they saw one of the contagion victims trying to rest.

That'd be perfect. Cliffjumper staggered drunkenly over to the door and all but fell through. Utter exhaustion had his body drugged with weariness more pervasive than any mere overcharge. He'd binged on high-grade before and had felt more in control of his limbs then than he did right now. His underpowered vocalizer made a distressed clicking sound. Pop-up warnings appeared on his heads-up display informing him that his auxiliary powerplant would sincerely like him to stop moving for a while. It would really, truly like to start dedicating all of its output to his self-repair very soon, please and thank you, so it politely bludgeoned him over the head with warnings telling him to sit the slag down before it took his knees out from under him.

"Yeah, okay," he thought he mumbled. His audios were fuzzing out on him, however, and he wasn't too sure that his vocalizer had engaged at all. He chose not to worry about it. Getting to the couch became the focus of his entire world.

Anyone watching would likely have been amused and concerned by his wobbling route couch-ward. The Minibot seemingly tacked against a nonexistent wind in order to reach his goal. He kept losing his balance, and it was difficult to keep track of where exactly the couch was located. "Couch," he reminded himself. "Couch very important."

Wait. "Energon." Had he said that aloud? The metal of his face felt hot and cold in turn as his auxiliary powerplant tried to keep up with temperature control, and he couldn't tell if the tick in his left optic was from trying to speak or from overtaxed tensile cables.

His fans kept spinning up and winding down, and his head whirled dizzily. It was distracting him from important things. Things that involved him moving, not sinking to the floor and resting like his unsteady knees were urging him. Energy was important. He needed energon.

"Hungry. Empty," he told his knees. "We need energon."

His knees weren't convinced. He made his legs stay straight underneath him anyway.

His tanks hammered him with pings, stridently warning him that self-repair was going to drain him in no time flat.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it."

Move, legs. He'd get to the couch eventually for some rest, but right now he had to move - where was he moving? Over there. That way. Go, Cliffjumper, go.

Detoooooooour. A long, exhausting detour that left him leaning against the wall beside the dispenser wheezing as a cube filled. Charge slowly gathered inside him to power his walk onward toward the couch. How had half a room become the road to Mordor? One did not simply walk to the couch.

A big gulp from the first cube turned into an embarrassing dribble down his chin as crawling processors collectively forgot how swallowing worked. Cliffjumper stood there staring without seeing the wall, the energon sparkling warmly over his tongue and leaking from the corners of his mouth. He should know how to do this; really, he knew he should. The back of his throat flexed uncertainly for a few minutes. It was funny, in a sleepy way, and he idly swished the liquid energy from side to side.

The energon seeped down his throat until it dripped onto his main intake, triggering it. He swallowed and gasped, almost startled by the sudden motion, and the cube hanging from his hand sloshed as he nearly let go of it. He fumbled for a grip and sternly yanked his arms back into cooperating in real time with his processors, which weren't doing so well with the timely responses either. Slag. Right, drink the energon, go slump into powersave mode on the couch. Those were the goals. Surely he could manage that.

And he did, although it took him longer than he thought when he checked the time. It took real effort to keep raising the cube up to his mouth. Balancing the edge on his chin and bracing his elbow on the wall worked better, but the cube was empty for a couple minutes before he realized that's why swallowing wasn't working this time. He refilled it and took an extra just in case. Trying not to spill them while shuffling across the room was exciting in a blurry, slow way.

Sinking down onto the couch felt like - like -

Like something wonderful and blissful, release on a mental level as his processors sank into a shallow level of statis just above recharge. Trembling cables throughout his body relaxed as he toppled over. The whole world felt plush, giving around him until he thought he should have felt smothered but only felt relieved. Regular noise sounded inordinately loud in the silence of his audio system's malfunctioning priority list, but it was a strange comfort. The pull and puff of his ventilation system became a steady roar. The plastic-Kevlar tarpaulin weave of the couch material crinkled quietly as he burrowed into it. He nudged his helm against it just to hear that sound again. His helm's sensor horns felt overly sensitive as they dented the couch cushion, and the slide of his metal rasped in his audios under the contradictive quiet-loud crackle of the couch giving way to him.

The material against his shoulder and chest felt inexplicably smooth. He shifted just to feel how his plating glided over it. Dragging his arms up took real effort, but the backs of his hands pressed into the cushion and bent his wrists down until the joints stretched against the tensile cables pleasantly. Rearranging his arms up around his head slid the smooth, silken shiver over forearms and the sides of his hands, and when the motion twisted his hips, his thighs pressed together in a way he hadn't expected. He should have. It was nothing new, but everything felt born anew right now. The world was formless, and every breath he took created something out of nothing. The inside of his thighs scraped gently, and the way the sides of his knees brushed sent prickles across his barely-powered sensor network. The soles of his feet set heavily on the floor, feeling cemented into it as if he'd never noticed how his weight pushed him downward before. There was a pressure upward that it took him a moment to realize was actually gravity being interpreted backward by his heels.

The relief from the physical effort of walking tripped an uncoiling tension up his chest like pleasure. His lips felt stuck together, but Cliffjumper felt so good that he peeled his mouth open as he hauled his feet up to lay on the couch. Parting his lips unglued his tongue from the chemical sensors on the roof of his mouth, and the resultant drag of air sounded like a muffled bellow from a far-away battle. He let it sigh back out, and his lips twitched a smile as the sound rushed through him. Everything was quiet, yet, conversely, everything was tremendously loud. The couch crinkled in a forest fire's cacophony. His fans billowed and blew like a windstorm. Breathing sounded like he was moaning aloud.

A pounding, rhythmic thump lulling his processors into a stupor. It pulsed in the tips of his fingers and around the rims of his hubcaps. He counted the thudding beats that felt like they should be rocking his arms on the couch before his optics. He didn't understand how something that sounded so powerful, that he could feel in the cavernous silence surrounding him, wasn't moving his arms. It wasn't until his optics dimmed and he started to doze off that he realized it was only his fuel pump. Oh…

The black shadows on the edges of his vision swooped in to cover him in swaddling, drifting clouds of darkness. He sighed and turned his head, pressing his cheek to the cushion.

And then he was gone.

The haze was slow to recede. It never cleared completely. The pixels acquired saturation one at a time in a slow bleed of gray that only gradually became color. The colors dripped away just as slowly, and the cycle went around and around.

He wasn't in recharge. His auxiliary powerplant couldn't generate enough to keep him more than functional, and his processors were totally occupied with his self-repair system. There wasn't enough space left to run recharge defragment protocols Deep repair statis wouldn't let his processors run active, either, so powersave kept his mind just barely online. Awareness came and went, and usually he didn't notice one or the other until it left.

Air droned, rushing in and out of his body. His fuel pump thumped. Deep in his chassis, his spark glittered and pulsed in tiny shimmers that were only noticeable in times like now, when he was conscious of every miniscule turning gear and hydraulic line gradually easing. He dozed in half-awake, languid relaxation. The couch crinkled slightly as he summoned enough control over his body to rub his cheek against the cushion.

Systems ebbed, fluxing on their very lowest settings, on the edge of that last tick down into statis. His plating had melted into the couch. He was a puddle of Cliffjumper. The cushions cradled him, supporting his limbs in positions that probably wouldn't be exceptionally comfortable any other time but were absolutely perfect right now. He couldn't move. He didn't want to move.

There were fingers walking up his back. Curiosity and concern left fingerprints up his trunk and traced along the transformation hinges. "Are you in there somewhere?" murmured from above his head, vaguely in the direction of the arm of the couch beyond his forearms.

The voice was no louder than a whisp of sound, but it rumbled like thunder amidst the rainstorm hiss of enhanced background noise. The whirr and hiss of another mech's systems was loud, but distant. So distant. Far away and dreamlike.

Cliffjumper exhaled an extra-long ventilation, and the puddle that was him rippled warm rings of contentment and comfortable across his surface. Self-repair had taken care of the pain. Now there was only the tiredness of inadequate charge leaving him exhausted by existing. Existing was tiresome but gloriously nice at the same time. Being a puddle of limbs made him inexpressibly happy right now.

No war. No viruses. No problems. Just blissfully letting his systems run in a machine state of powersave that brought him to the level of primitive metal. Metal didn't worry. Metal didn't have a care in the world.

It took him awhile to think about that. By the time he pushed it into his circuitry to percolate slowly outward in slow bloom of satisfied electromagnetic energy, the fingers had petted down his upper arms to rest on his elbows. Amusement pressed against his EM field. Mirage apparently found his limp, sprawling ease entertaining.

Amusement patted his arms, and a hot tide of interest. A bright spangle of charge flicked against him; the energy field equivalent of a naughty, waggled brow ridge. Because frag if Mirage, of all mechs, would lower himself to a crooked grin and frank question about if he was interested in playing.

Spies, Cliffjumper thought fuzzily, were kind of simple sometimes. At least, Mirage was. He didn't think so normally, but right now he couldn't dredge up enough coherency to contemplate anything complicated. Spies liked to watch without being seen. Mirage sometimes liked to watch him, stalking him through the Ark on stealthy feet and ghosting around him to press kisses of energy to the backs of his hands, the outside of his tires, between his sensor horns. Cliffjumper had adjusted to being molested by thin air on occasion. It was always tentative, small acts of blowing wind that spoke of aborted touches and near misses. There were unseen optics on him, and hands reaching out for him. Spies watched. They didn't touch

Mirage liked to be hunted down and unveiled. He liked to be exposed to everyone. He loved to surrender the hard-won independence of a special operative to Cliffjumper's control. Nothing ran him hotter than being seized and stripped of his dignified behavior until he moaned and pleaded in public.

But he was a spy, and spies liked to watch. There was the electric excitement of having his function and his upbringing tossed over Cliffjumper's shoulder and carted off for grungy, low-class rutting, and Primus knew Mirage adored the Minibot for treating him to that guilty pleasure - but he wanted his function, too.

He wanted to see Cliffjumper respond. Wanted to stay invisible. Wanted to be the ghost nobody could catch, and draw the pleasure out of the red Minibot's body in long strands wrapped around aristocratic fingers. He wanted to watch, but he wanted more than that.

Cliffjumper was fairly good at catering to Mirage's wishes, but prying them out of the noblemech's doggedly shut mouth was a trial. He'd tried ignoring the invisible stalking. He'd tried playing along with it. He'd tried outright asking about it. There'd been no answers offered, although trying to get them had been fun.

Now Mirage was all kinds of excited because Cliffjumper was nearly in recharge under his hands. Hands that could touch without being seen, and couldn't be reacted to, so the spy was free to indulge his whim to touch as much as he wanted. He was free to touch what he watched so avidly every day.

The hyperactive sizzle of lust and yearning need zapped over the snoozing Minibot, who onlined an optic with great effort. It was always the forbidden stuff that jumpstarted the noblemech's engine. Hmmph. Not that it'd been forbidden if they'd actually talked about it, but Mirage and his communication issues could fill an entire book with blank pages. He wondered in muzzy interest just how many times his door had been hacked, if it was touching him while he slept that evidently turned the racecar's motor. It sort of explained why he sometimes woke up in such a good mood, and why Mirage always seemed to be conveniently nearby ready for some Viking-style fragging against the nearest wall.

"Oh, come on," Cliffjumper said, or thought he said, and a flutter of halfway exasperated affection swelled and washed over his plating like a wave across the Cliffjumper puddle. They were going to have a long talk once the virus flushed out of his body and self-repair got him back on his feet.

"Just relax," crooned quietly down at him, and careful, attentive fingers started investigating his armor. Excitement skittered under a spy's silence.

"You could've just asked," he mumbled, or maybe that was his engine gurgling. He curled into the couch, burying his nose in the cushion. That was the extent of his ability to think about Mirage's newest kink at the moment. Being watched by the noblemech had always been fine by him. Being touched like this felt okay as well. Unexpected, but he didn't mind. He liked Mirage. He liked being touched by Mirage.

Stupid nobles. Always making interfacing more of an issue than it was. He'd start leaving his door unlocked once they had a talk about it. Or change the lock combination every night, if the noblemech wanted a challenge. Heh. It could turn into a nice game of spy versus fighter: Is Cliffjumper Asleep or Ready To Pounce?

The couch crinkled. Air rushed and roared, and the world lurched as his perfect comfort was disturbed slightly. His optics lit dimly, but it took him some time to focus on what was in front of his face. The blue color was pretty. It took him five minutes or so to realize it was actually Mirage's lower leg. He admired it as hands coated in fascination and something warmer, more tender, continued stroking in broad, petting motions over his shoulders, down his back, and under the armor plating. He stretched and sighed, letting his armor flex out from his struts and the tensile cables go lax, opening the gaps for those exploring fingers.

His main powerplant bleated error warnings, still. The hum of incrementally rising charge caused by the hands faltered and leveled off, reaching a plateau as his auxiliary powerplant reached maximum output. Cliffjumper clicked his vocalizer and smiled. It made his face feel strange where the plating had gone slack as he rested.

Pleasure followed the hands now running down the inside of his legs. His sensor network picked it up, purred with it, and let it settle into his struts. The charge glowed under his plating and spread in a dense cloud over his circuitry, but it was as hazy as his CPU. It didn't build. It just kneaded down his conduits in a plush caress mirroring what Mirage was doing to his feet.

Cliffjumper breathed in sensation as rich as quality high-grade, and the darkness blanketed him again.

He woke to feedback and static.

The shock of it jolted his systems in a lightning strike of surprise, but Mirage's acidic words sounded harsher than the chattering white noise hashing in his audios. Offense and the smallest tinge of fear made him reluctantly pull himself out of the puddle of self he'd been wallowing in. He didn't want to. It'd felt good just existing, but Mirage's EM field was hardening, and he didn't like that. The defensive, offended prickle closing it off from him had Cliffjumper reacting before he knew why.

"What's going on?" came out a thin whine of strained noise that only made him more aware of the shrieking feedback.

His fingers twitched as his audios abruptly reset. The feedback cleared into - yelling? No, he was still having volume issues. They likely thought they were keeping their voices down out of consideration of him.

"You do not know what you are speaking of."

"What's to know? You've got your hands up his armor, and like the Pit is he in any shape to 'face! What's next, waiting until Ratchet's got him knocked out for repairs and then feeling him up during surgery? Clanging him while he's bleeding out in a 'Con cell wasn't good enough for you - now you've gotta do it while he's unconscious? Frag, mech, I know everybody's got their thing, but this's taking it too far!"

The tinge of fear became frigid, icy anger, but the slick of fear thrilled along under it. Cliffjumper curled his fingers and tried to remember if he'd onlined his optics yet. He couldn't tell.

"You go too far, Jazz," Mirage said, but his voice was blandly calm. A tremble of uncertainty swirled on the fringe of Cliffjumper's EM field, a testing touch as if the noblemech were suddenly doubting.

Doubting what? Annoyed by the lack of familiar teasing touches and the cold absence of hot lust he'd been gradually syncing up with, the red Minibot reached out as hard as he could. Which wasn't much considering the state of his powerplant, admittedly. His circuitry scarcely had enough charge to keep him conscious; doing more than that drained him further. His EM field managed a single pulse off his plating, despite that. A weak buffet of want snipped at the hesitant borders of Mirage's field, like a sleepy cyberkitten's growl when the petting stopped.

Exhaustion tempted him. He could drift away and let the loud, whispered argument become background noise again. The black, warm haze of powersave beckoned.

Instead, Cliffjumper's chin jutted as he gathered his willpower and told his hand to move. He could give in to weariness in a bit. "Come here," he said, or not. Probably not. But his arm did slide across the cushion in a deafening rustle nobody else even noticed under the angry words being softly spat back and forth. His hand crawled over fabric, groping for whom he was almost sure was sitting in that direction. Over there. Somewhere.

Metal. Yes, metal. Triumph!

Metal that smacked the palm of his hand with zapping shock and jumped away as Mirage practically fell off the couch. Not so triumphant. Frag. Get back here. Cliffjumper didn't have the energy to spare for romping around the common room right now.

"Nnngh," he complained. That sounded coherent enough to him, but the metal he was reaching for didn't return immediately to his grip, so maybe not. He grasped after open air. "Snrrglefrrgit."

"...what'd he say?"

"You are going to have to repeat that," a certain snooty noblemech said stiffly, and Cliffjumper absently wondered if there was anything nearby he could throw at Jazz's head. Mirage was eight flavors of offended dignity, and he was really not up to dealing with Mirage in a furious huff.

His arm had fallen off the couch when he lost his grip. It made his whole upper body jerk and ache, but he lifted it up and waved the hand. The pleasant song of low charge that'd had him humming with circuit-level pleasure even while in light statis was dropping. He didn't like that. It made him feel cold. His auxiliary powerplant really didn't like that. He flapped the hand more urgently.

He couldn't focus his optics, but a blue and white blur knelt between him and the colorful smear that was the rest of the room. His hand was captured in a larger hand with long, graceful fingers. "Cliffjumper…"

"Mech, let him go. We gotta have a talk, and he's got his self-repair runnin' so high I can hear the nanites from here. Let's take a walk outsi - uh. Oh."

"Yes," Mirage said dryly. "Oh."

It was either let the Minibot drag himself off the couch, or allow the insistent pull to reel the noblemech in. Mirage wisely chose to let Cliffjumper pull him down onto the couch. The smaller Autobot rested a minute, just breathing, but his steel grip on those long fingers didn't ease for a second. There was a definite sense of claiming to the hold, despite the fact that the little red mech was laying on the couch and more out of it than fully aware of his surroundings.

Cliffjumper tugged again. Mirage went with it. The narrow blue slit on the outermost edge of Cliffjumper's bleary vision continued to study them both. Jazz kept his mouth shut, which mean Cliffjumper's idle plans for throwing things at his head subsided into better plans. Namely, getting Mirage exactly where he wanted him.

It took some doing. The position they ended up in wasn't really snuggling. It was more like osmosis. Absorption of electromagnetic energy via sheer surface area contact. Mirage laid back more and more as the determined Minibot oozed into his lap, then inched up his chest until he could nestle his helm under the noblemech's chin. A nose reached up far enough to nudge Mirage's helm vents, gasped pants gusting out of the tired little Autobot's mouth to be sucked into Mirage's systems in a desire-soaked breath of air and electromagnetic energy. Weary want-need met a quivery, relieved field that yielded to the firm - if slightly addled - reassurance of a dominant far too tired to put up with anyone's scrap today.

Mirage finally surrendered and swung his legs up onto the couch to lay under him. Cliffjumper sighed deeply and buried his nose in the noblemech's neck cabling.

"Better?"

It wasn't clear who Mirage was talking to. The word came out haughtily, however, and that just wouldn't do. Cliffjumper's engine gave a sickly turn-over but failed to start, and the Minibot wriggled. Did he have to do everything?

If Jazz said anything in return, Cliffjumper didn't hear him, and he wasn't about to answer verbally. His mouth seemed to have been taken over by a cotton-based lifeform of some kind. It was breeding. Or perhaps dead. Either way, his tongue felt mired to the roof of his mouth again, and he was becoming slowly hypnotized by the sound of his fuel pump whenever he paused to connect two thoughts together. His processors were cycling him down toward the dark comfort of statis again.

He stubbornly fought it off and wriggled about some more. His knees slipped apart and settled on either side of Mirage's slim hips. It took a few weak kicks, but he managed to hook the tops of his feet over those long white thighs, too. Mirage wouldn't be moving his lower half anytime soon, unless he dislodged the Minibot now tangled up in his legs.

Cliffjumper radiated smug down at the noblemech, lost focus, and dozed off.

Fine fingers tweaking his sensor horns brought his optics blinking online again half an hour later. Hadn't he been doing something?

He shifted and lifted his cheek off the red cross seemingly made for his head to rest on. The foreign beat of a higher-performance fuel pump sounded positively thunderous from this close. Under it ran the indescribable noise of a spark he knew very well indeed. Oh, right. Yes, he'd been doing Mirage.

When he got his head around to look in the right direction, he saw the spy's face very close to his own. "Hello again. I was wondering if you would wake up anytime soon. How are you feeling?"

Cliffjumper frowned. Mirage's voice had lost its knifelike edge, but the words plus the warm flow of amusement and affection rippling over him like water over a rock was overwhelming. Words were...too much right now. He couldn't process both at once. The energy touching him all over was too intense, and there was little processor power to spare on language centers.

"That is an interesting look you're giving me." Mirage's lips gave the tiniest quirk, a full-blown smile in noblemech terms. "Not ready to get up, I take it. Hoist tells me you need to fuel regularly. What are your tank levels at?"

He didn't understand. He mulishly refused to try, either. The only solution was to shut Mirage up. Where had he left his hands? His limbs were numb with inadequate power.

A slender hand helped prop his chin up, although he hadn't been aware he'd been nodding off until Mirage caught him. He blinked hazily. The corner of the cube pressed to his lower lip got another blink.

Long fingers delicately balanced the cube against his mouth and tilted it up a fraction at a time until the energon was barely held back by surface tension. "Drink," Mirage coaxed. "Drink for me."

The pink liquid slowly melded to the crease where cube met lip, and in a second the surface broke. Energon flooded in a quick rivulet to fill the indent, then the crack between Cliffjumper's lips. The Minibot's mouth opened instinctively as energon trickled down the sides of his chin, and his tongue flicked out. Startled awake, if not aware, Cliffjumper accepted the next mouthful tipped between his open lips. And the next. And the one after that, until the cube was empty. The hand holding his chin caught the escaped trickles and wiped them up with thumb and forefinger respectively.

Mirage lowered the red mech's chin back down to rest on his chest and lifted his stained hand to lick the energon off himself. It looked like something to do.

So Cliffjumper did it.

The fuel pump beating under the Minibot's cheek sped up. Smiling lazily, breathing slow and feeling the air going in and out with an almost sensual appreciation, Cliffjumper entwined his hand with Mirage's and poked his tongue out. It barely peeked from between his lips, but that was enough. He moved his head instead of the hand he pulled close, and his tongue ran over the beautifully crafted fingertips no other mech in the Ark had. He'd recognize these fingers anywhere.

The spark under him pulsed, straining upward toward his own. Cliffjumper breathed gently out and nuzzled the larger hand folded around his own, thumbs holding down the tips. His fingers opened and closed between Mirage's. When he bent his wrist, it pressed the noblemech's knuckles to his lips.

Warm desire became a swamping tide of emotions Cliffjumper couldn't separate. They were hot and yearning, dancing across his plating in electric zings he just didn't have the power to echo. He sighed against Mirage's hand and moved his mouth in words his vocalizer wouldn't engage to speak aloud. But it was okay. He was sure the blue Autobot understood him all the same.

When he was finished not-talking, his lips had opened enough that he could set his teeth on those knuckles. Only the middle two, but that was fine. He bit, not trying to dent, not to cause pain - but enough to leave a mark.

The burring fans trapped under him stuttered. He hummed happily in response.

Things were going slushy around the edges again. Yawning was a human habit, but a nice one. The stretch of facial plating and the tensile cables underneath relaxed tensions most mechs didn't even know they carried until the yawn ended. Cliffjumper yawned and ducked his head to rub his cheek against the hand that had somehow ended up tucked under his chin. Had he dozed off?

He had. Mirage was still running hot, and Cliffjumper's body absorbed that heat and the excess charge gratefully. It was that much less energy his overworked auxiliary powerplant had to put out. It also tasted strongly of the noblemech's helpless, jealously guarded vulnerability, and Cliffjumper yawned again in order to suck in a huge gulp of that rare vintage. He held it in and let it fill his systems until the heat burned pleasantly.

When he stirred sleepily to look up at him, Mirage pulled the Minibot's hand up to his mouth to press a tender kiss to the palm. "Cliffjumper, I - mmm?"

Cliffjumper grunted irritably and kept his hand where it was. Mirage's hands stroked down his arms to rest on his shoulders, but he sort of twitched a disagreeable shimmy to shrug them off. He didn't want touching. He wanted - he wanted - no words. No hands on him. Just the sleepy silence and the hot, drenching flood of Mirage's body losing control minute by minute until he'd writhe even as Cliffjumper kept him still.

Eventually, self-repair would kick his main powerplant back online, and Cliffjumper would be able to deal with the noblemech's words and hands. Just not right now.

Mirage was kissing the hand over his mouth. Cliffjumper's vents flipped opened and closed as he jolted back awake out of that hazy powersave doze he kept dropping into, and the kisses held the shape of a smile against his palm. The Minibot tapped one finger against those lips, and they obediently stayed closed when Cliffjumper withdrew his hands. They curved without forming an actual smile, and the expression of tolerance on the spy's face belied the interest beating through the his body in time with his fuel pump.

Cliffjumper trailed his fingers down over the noblemech's chin and down the elegant neck, not because he wanted to arouse the mech further but because he was too weary to lift his arm. The thrumming arousal was merely a side benefit. He rested his chin on the top edge of Mirage's chest plate and sent his hands searching for Mirage's own hands.

When he found them, he insistently pushed them upward along the couch cushions. The material crinkled under them. It'd be difficult to pin anyone down on cushy fabric like this, but the point wasn't to actually restrain the taller Autobot. If Mirage really wanted to get away, it'd be as simple as sitting up straight. Cliffjumper would probably flop over and go back into powersave mode.

He didn't resist, however. He let the red Minibot slide his hands up above his head, fingers entwined together. Cliffjumper sighed against him. The knees clamped around his hips tightened for a second before relaxing again. A thumb massaged briefly into the center of one finely crafted hand, remnants of the nobility that itched to touch a utilitarian red armor. Itched to, but couldn't. Not without disobeying the implicit order holding him down.

Thoroughly trapped, Mirage chewed on his lower lip and made a soft sound in the back of his throat. It was likely that nobody else in the room could even hear it.

Cliffjumper's dim optics flashed, and he exhaled quietly against hot armor. All the small noises roared in his audios, quietly crashing over him in a dizzy cascade, and he heard it all. His systems were ebbing into another downturn. Fuzzy darkness closed in around him like a blanket.

Silky, polished metal twisted just slightly under him, and Mirage breathed a whimper.

It hadn't been a good day for Cliffjumper, but it hadn't been all that bad.

[* * * * *]