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archie-sunshine · 5 months

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So, What Now?(Rehabili/Cohabi-Tation)

Chapter 2: In Which Whirl is Sloshed and Searches for Safe Harbour

FIC TAGS: Eventual Whirl/Cyclonus/Tailgate, Cyclonus/Tailgate, polyamory, slowburn romance, mutual pining, slice of life, fluff, comedy, eventual smut(planned for later chapters), sappy mushy lovey stuff, polycue, May eventually have illustrations

The Lost Light has a brand new universe to explore! But everyone's still tired from the old one! In the interim between wacky hijinks, a solution is offered to those bored to death by peacetime- Why form a club about it or renovate your hab suite of course!

Whirl doesn't know how he feels about all the pep. And even worse, he doesn't know how to feel about Cyclonus and Tailgate wanting him to join in on their clean slate.

Chapter 1 Here!

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Author's Notes: So I'll be vague to keep from spoilers for the greater comic, I do want to preface that some characters that do die in mtmte/lost light WILL be appearing alive and well in the fic, I don't think there are any in THIS chapter, however, just as a warning, if you see some folks who should be dead pop up, just pop a lampshade on it. I wanted to see them thrive, so some things have been conveniently glossed over and/or forgotten, wink wink.

CHAPTER TAGS: alcohol, getting drunk, making poor decisions while drunk, being cared for while drunk, getting entrapped into spending time with people who care about you

“-And I know he never liked me but really?? This is a new low! Can you believe him? CAN YOU!!”

Whirl’s optic glassily followed the movement of the energon cube he was spinning in his claws. His gaze flicked up to swerve’s face from where he rested his helm on the bar. Whenever he was lost in thought at Swerve’s, Swerve’s constant yapping was his fragging north star.

“And- AND- AND!!! Another thing! Look at the state of this place!!” Swerve threw his servos wide, gesturing at the bar in general. “Only half a deca-cycle since the slaggin CBEI and this place is CRICKETS!” He cried. The patrons of the bar, few and far between, all briefly traded glances from over their drinks at their fuming host.

“Wow, gonna file for bankruptcy, swerve?” Whirl grumbled, smiling tipsily up at him. “You should just start your own stupid club about it.”

“As if-! I’ll admit the offer was tempting, but I gotta get a request looked over by Ultra Magnus, right? And that’s never gonna happen.” Swerve huffed, snatching Whirl’s empty glass out of his claws and beginning to clean it fitfully.

“That got repealed!” Shouted a patron from one of the booths- Rewind, obviously. “There was a whole fight about it between Roddy and Mags, I caught the back half of it!”

Swerve perked up, turning his attention over to Rewind and setting the empty glass back down in front of Whirl. “Wait, for real? Slag, I gotta get on that then! You think I can make my movie nights legit, a real human appreciation club? Aw man thats gonna be killer-”

Swerve’s voice faded out of Whirl’s processor with everything else again. The past half a deca-cycle had gone by fast. It felt like a whole new ship, the sounds of construction echoing from every deck. The noise was bad enough, but Rodimus had managed to grow an even greater, nastier ego about how much his idea had brought life back to the lost light. No one had thought such a thing was possible, and yet again, this new universe had proven them wrong.

Whirl kicked his pedes a bit on the bar stool, tapping them against the bar. He hadn’t talked to Cyclonus or Tailgate really since the announcement day. They traded pleasantries when they saw one another, but Whirl had loads on his plate, important junk to think about, like…. Well nothing really, but it wasn’t like he was avoiding them either! It was just that every time they wanted to talk to him he was very conveniently busy. No big deal at all.

… And besides, they were busy renovating, and having fun with that was more important than him boring them with his cyclical existence of waking up in his hab suite and kicking the junk around until he was tired enough to recharge.

… what are you even supposed to say in response to ‘do you want to live in our hab unit with us?’

Maybe… yes?

Whirl shook his helm, growling as he stood up.

“-atron was just WATCHING, it was so wild, I haven’t seen them argue that bad for a hot klik.” Rewind continued, optics flicking to the taller bot as he began to leave the bar. “Woof, Whirl you're swaying kind of bad-”

Swerve’s gaze also shifted to Whirl. “Ooouh, yeah- Hey man, be careful, I got a standard of care to uphold, you need someone to walk you back to your suite?”

Whirl threw a wobbly servo up at them, staggering out of the door. “I’ll be just fine, don’t even worry about it.”

He wandered through the halls, staggering and unbalanced. His processor was swimming, tired and sluggish. He walked for what felt like an hour, not getting any closer to his hab suite. He stumbled towards an observation window, slowly cycling his optic at the view of deep space.

… His hab suite was nowhere near an observation window…

Frag.

He kept walking, now with a new destination in mind.

After what felt like even more than an hour, Whirl stood at the door of Cyclonus and Tailgate’s hab suite. If there was one thing going for this whole new renovation thing, it lended the interior of the ship a lot more colour. For instance, the couple’s door was painted a pretty new dark purple colour, with its room number now displayed proudly in flickering teal neon. A few loose building supplies and paint cans were strewn down the hall around the door, with a few tools left out as well. Whirl noted the possibility of someone stealing them, then briefly pondered the possibility of being the one to steal them.

He stared at the door. The door was staring back at him. He could scratch the newly applied paint off, he could do it easily too, nobody would even know it was him.

Frag you stupid door.

Frag right off you stupid door.

Whirl cycled his optic again, blurring his vision and letting the purple and teal colours melt together.

You don’t even know me like that, you door.

Couldn’t even hope to know me like that.

Bitchaft door.

Whirl knocked, finally giving in. He did it so gently he was almost sure nobody would hear it. He nearly prayed no one did.

He could hear someone moving around behind the door after a few moments.

Frag. He was such a prick. It was the middle of the night.

The door slid open with a quiet whoosh.

“Oh, Whirl!” Tailgate exclaimed. Whirl had offlined his optic, swaying weakly in front of the door. He raised a servo and onlined his optic again sluggishly.

“Tailgateeeee…” Whirl mumbled astutely, prodding a claw against the flat top of his head.

“Oooohhhh boy…” Tailgate grimaced, reaching his arms up to gently corral the bigger bot into the hab unit. “Looks like you had some fun at swerves, huh?”

“A rip roarin time, a slaggin bacchanal of a time, shoulda been there, you’d’ve loved every second.” Whirl mumbled, glancing around the unit. If his vision would stop swimming he’d have been able to admire all their work, but as it was right now- dark and late- the whole place looked too smudgey to make out. “They got gogo bots now, real class act, I’ll tell ya.” He babbled as tailgate coaxed him over to a couch.

“Do they really??” Tailgate whispered, optics all wide and faceplate flushed.

“No, I lied to you.” Whirl muttered, leaning back into the couch and bonking his helm against the arm rest. “Jus’ like me to do it too, takin advantage and stuff, bullyin a bot like you with my lies and mistruths.”

Tailgate giggled, his optics squinting in that annoyingly cute way only he could pull off. “Aw slag, you got me with it too, I wouldn’t put it past Swerve to do something like that.”

“Would you keep goin’ if he did?” Whirl croaked, smiling-in his own way- at Tailgate.

“Oh yeah, definitely.” Tailgate chuckled, sitting down on the couch near Whirl’s shoulder pad. “Who do you think he could convince to dance?” He asked as he tucked a pillow under Whirl’s helm

Whirl gazed at Tailgate. He felt warm. “Oh… uh…” He thought for a long klik, offlining his optic as he scanned his swimming databanks. “Oh- OH- I bet he could get Misfire to do it, he’d do somethin like that for energon.”

“I think he could convince Nautica, she’s been loving to dance lately.” Tailgate replied.

Whirl let out a raspy laugh, leaning his helm into the pillow. There was a moment of quiet between them.

“You take good care of me…” Whirl mumbled, keeping his optic offline. He didn’t want to see Tailgate looking at him when he said stupid stuff like that.

Stupid, it was stupid. He shouldn’t have come here.

Tailgate chuckled again.

It was a relief to know that at least he found him funny. “... Y’know… cyclonus told me ‘bout the.. Hab unit thing…”

“Yeah?” Tailgate murmurs, a little reserved, a little nervous.

“You really… were sad that I was by myself in my hab?” Whirl slurred, gulping down a hiccup midway through his words.

“... Well yeah… I dunno, I miss seeing you around more.” Tailgate admitted. “Cyclonus said you might feel better if you weren’t by yourself, and since we were already definitely going to do the renovation that we could just… move you in!”

Whirl onlined his optic, glassily peering up at Tailgate. “Cyclonus said that?”

“Mhm!” He confirmed, sitting up from his spot and puttering over to a different part of the unit.

Whirl laid there, staring at the ceiling, dumbfounded. No way was Cyclonus the one to do that, no way. It made sense coming from Tailgate, but Cyclonus? Whirl let out a long exvent. His face(or lack thereof) felt a little hot, processing that news.

“Aaaahhh, don’t even lie… he said it was you that- that uh.. That had the idea…” Whirl grumbled. Tailgate returned from the shadows, pushing a glass of non intoxicating energon into his talons.

“No- It was his idea!” Tailgate laughed. “You should drink this by the way… and try to get some recharge. You can stay here until you're sober.” He paused, hesitating for a moment before leaning down to Whirl’s audial and conspiratorially whispering, “Or as long as you want after that too…”

He winked at him, before walking to a minibot sized armchair and sitting down. He produced a datapad from his subspace and began to read it quietly.

Whirl peered at him quietly from the couch, cycling his optic. Each time it took longer for him to online them again.

“... Thanks, TG…” Whirl mumbled. The last thing he saw through his fuzzy vision was the smile that earned him.

“Uuughhh….”

The light was blinding. Bright, too bright, like the lamp of an operating table.

An… an operating…

Whirl sat bolt upright with a punched out exvent, swinging his helm around the room in a daze. It wasn’t familiar, he hadn’t been here before, where-

“Ah, You’re awake-”

He whipped his head around, nearly headbutting Cyclonus as he leapt to his pedes. His venting was quick and heavy, coolant thick on his plating.

“Woah- Easy-” Cyclonus reached his servos forwards, not quite touching Whirl but sort of trying to steady him. “You’re in our hab unit, you’re just fine, Whirl.”

Whirl lifted a servo to his head, groaning and cycling his optic a few times. “I feel like trash…” He muttered.

“You did get drunk and recharge on our couch.” Cyclonus said.

“Yea… yeah I remember.”

“... I’d love to know why…”

Whirl exvented, scratching at the back of his helm and glancing around. Construction clearly wasn’t finished here yet, but the room already felt fuller, more lived in. After stellar cycles of travel on this primus-forsaken ship, it felt like bots were finally starting to put together that this place was home. There were already bits of new furniture dotted around, the couch he’d crashed on, a short table, some chairs of varying size, a holovid projector. There were shelves around too, with some datapads around, some old keepsakes. It felt… homey. Comfortable, even.

“... You said the door was open.” Whirl shrugged.

There was a moment’s silence between them. There was something unspoken there. There always was, like a supernova waiting to happen every time they were alone together. Some cocktail of past grudges they left behind leaving a hole where something used to burn that neither of them really knew how to fill.

Yeah, Whirl guessed he could say something poetic like that about it if he wanted to.

Cyclonus sized Whirl up, his resting face softening just the barest amount.

“And I got lost trying to find my Hab suite.” Whirl sneered.

Ah, there it went. Cyclonus rolled his optics, turning away from him and walking towards a new part of their updated unit. “Idiot.” Cyclonus muttered. The new room was nice, no door, just a knocked down wall between their main old hab suite and the extension, now retrofitted into a small eating area with a bar with high chairs as well as a more normal dining table and chairs. Cyclonus poured himself a cube of fuel, taking a seat on one of the high chairs.

Whirl glanced around. “So uh… where’s Tailgate?”

Cyclonus tilted his horns towards the opposite side of the hab unit to him. Whirl turned, noting two doors on either side of the wall. “He’s putting the finishing touches on a music system in the slabroom.” He explained.

“Nice. Sounds… cool.” Whirl nodded awkwardly, making some varied noises with his vocalizer.

Cyclonus took a sip from his glass.

It was so uncomfortably quiet, he was starting to notice the humm of the ship’s engines again.

“I should get out of here.” Whirl said, just as the couple’s slabroom door opened and Tailgate popped out with a datapad in hand.

“Hey Whirl!” He greeted, chipper as ever. He trotted across the unit to Cyclonus, climbing up onto the high chair next to him with some effort. The two of them shared a brief kiss while Cyclonus slid a second filled cup of fuel in front of his conjunx. Whirl averted his gaze.

“Hey Tailgate… sorry for popping out of the metalwork last night.” Whirl said. “Hope I made your night more interesting.”

Tailgate nodded a bit. “It was no problem- you should take a seat!” Tailgate said, gesturing to the other side of the bar.

“Uh-” Whirl glanced at Cyclonus. Cyclonus gave him another meaningful look, nodding towards the chair. “... Okay, sure.” He said, letting out a heavy vent.

He took a seat across from them as tailgate prodded around on his datapad. “Soooo, I know you’re not all there on the whole unit thing, BUT! I’ve been looking around the holoboards…” He began. “And I thought maybe it would be fun if we all looked into one of these new clubs!” He turned the datapad around to the others, beaming as the pad showed off a list of potential clubs.

“Ah- Are you sure you want me in on this?” Whirl asked, stifling a laugh. “I’m not exactly the ‘fun low stakes activity’ type-”

“I think it’s a great idea.” Cyclonus immediately replied, half cutting off whirl with his abrupt affirmative.

“Well how many ‘fun low stakes activities’ have you done recently?” Tailgate retorted.

Whirl wracked his processor for a moment. Drinking… some dancing while drinking… sat through half of one movie night with swerve… “... Touche.” Whirl looked between the two of them for a moment, taking in their closeness, their expressions- one hopeful, the other more serene.

“...Alright, what did you have in mind then?”

#cywhirlgate #cygate #cywhirl #whirlgate #transformers fanfiction #transformers fanfic #mtmte fanfic #maccadam #cyclonus #whirl #tailgate #transformers #my fic #my art

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