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In the runup to a campaign retrenching, it was growing increasingly rare that Hound and Mirage had shared leisure shifts between missions that neither of them was too exhausted to be awake for. Not that Hound didn’t enjoy just recharging with Mirage, or the proof of how much he was trusted when Mirage rested perfectly peacefully with his spark chamber in Hound’s lap. But it was also nice to be awake together when they weren’t trying to plot mayhem against the Decepticons or patrolling or fleeing pursuit or talking their boss down from plotting too much mayhem against the Decepticons.
These rare shared leisure shifts were usually planned long before they actually hit, both of them collecting a list of things that sounded good and deciding which one they wanted to do as soon as they knew their next available time. But this particular orn, acid rain had derailed Hound’s carefully planned floral observations and supply line failures had blocked Mirage’s reserved access for the oil baths. So instead, Hound was leaned back against the side of the berth where Mirage was sitting, looking through some files Beachcomber had collected of rock formations. Mirage gently stroked a polishing cloth across Hound's helm and watched some kind of classical Herdazian opera from the last planet they’d stopped off on.
The cloth stilled, and Mirage said, out of nowhere, “I want to seduce you.”
“Um?” Hound blinked, looking up. “You want to interface now?”
Mirage’s vents huffed. “No—I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed.” Neither would Hound, but it was strange that Mirage was just asking about it. “I want to show you the kind of things I would do on a mission.”
Trying to get Mirage to talk about this, once he’d gotten past an initial reluctance to discuss his missions and anxieties that Hound was going to be angry at the work he sometimes did—and once Hound had gotten past his own anxieties that Mirage was going to treat him like another mission—was usually like pulling gear teeth. Hound put his datapad down slowly, like he was afraid to spook his bonded. “Not like a report, I take it.”
Mirage laughed, a little and musical sound. A sign that he was thinking much harder about how he was acting than he was letting on. “Not like a report, dearspark. More like…”
In one fluid motion he’d swung down from the berth, wrapping himself around Hound on the way so his arms were tucked behind Hound’s neck and his legs were straddling Hound’s things. And…other parts. Hound put his hands on Mirage’s hips with no hesitation, steadying him and getting a nice solid handful of his wheels.
“…this,” Mirage breathed out, his lips right by Hound’s audial. Hound could have heard him speak at that volume from across the room, of course, with his sensor array, and the noise and intimacy of it sent a shudder rattling all the way down his columnar plating.
“I’m okay with this,” Hound said. Mirage laughed again, and this time it was a snort. A good sign that he was actually comfortable.
“Oh, this is nothing,” Mirage said, and rested their foreheads together, closing his optics. Hound did the same, enjoying his warmth and voice. “I want to make plans, beloved. I could curl your plating off with the things I know. I want to.” Hound felt him online one optic, electricity buzzing against his faceplates. He onlined one of his own in return, just a bit, peeking back. “If…you’re alright with it…I want to see if I could crack you open.” Something hungry purred in his subglyphs, and Hound reset his vocalizer before he tried to reply.
“I’m still okay with this,” he managed. “But that aside. You want to interface now?”
Mirage snorted and Hound caught the sound with his own mouth, closing his optics again and sinking into the moment.
Hound was well aware he was bonded to an extremely capable mech with, among other talents, a positive genius for acquisition. He just wasn’t always prepared for the things Mirage chose to do with it.
Such as, for example, when Hound walked into their shared quarters after fetching this evening’s fuel ration to find Mirage seated on a chair in the center of the room wearing a slinky chainmail gown and cradling a fine crystal dodecahedron of engex.
“Oh,” Hound said, freezing in the doorway. He could smell the copper brushed over Mirage’s faceplates and hands, feeling it pinging like sparks in his electrosensing. Hound really, really wanted to touch it.
And then Mirage smiled at him, secretive and sultry in a way that changed the shape of the paint and Hound found himself pulled forward, wanting to touch, wanting to know—
“Be a dear and close the door, would you?” Mirage asked.
Hound had to try three times before he managed to hit the door button.
Mirage stood up, carrying the engex with him as he strolled towards Hound, taking a single sip as his optics flicked up and down. Hound automatically ran a protocol to remember the last time he’d visited the washracks cross-checked with the muddiest patrol routes and when he’d been on them—usually when Mirage was looking him over like that he was trying to figure out if Hound had been skipping bathing again—but instead of picking out the patch of mud Hound could feel itching on his left shoulder, Mirage just smiled and took another sip of his drink.
“Is this the seducing,” Hound said, still trying not to reach out and touch because this was very strange.
Mirage’s secretive smile cracked into a real one for a bare astrosecond before settling back into place. “Yes, this is the seducing, darling. Have a seat."
Hound sat on the chair. He was getting his bearings now, despite Mirage's being very shiny and distracting. When Mirage took a seat directly on his lap, he even managed to keep a straight face and snag the arm that wasn't holding his dinner around Mirage's back to support him.
"Thank you, dear," Mirage purred, perched with entirely too much grace on Hound's mid-leg joints. He took a delicate sip of what Hound could now pick up was a regular ration, displayed in a fancy engex dodecahedron, optics canted low. "Oh—you should eat too. I really didn't mean to disrupt you."
"It's fine," Hound said, lifting his own ration. He pulled himself together, because Mirage liked a challenge, and if this had been a mission his targets probably wouldn't have been falling over the moment they saw him. Somehow. Through great restraint. "What did, um. Bring you here, then?"
Mirage sighed, sounding sad, and leaned his head to the side so it was resting against Hound's shoulder. The copper prickled pleasantly on contact. "Well. What with one thing and another, I just...didn't have anywhere else to go." His optics brightened, fixing on Hound. "At least, nowhere with such wonderful company."
"I'm sure we can work something out, between us," Hound replied, starting to get a grip of things. A spark of mischief compelled him to add "Like finding some empty quarters somewhere that no one would mind you borrowing for the night."
Mirage shot him a stern look and Hound took a sip of energon to cover his laughter before they fell back into their roles.
Mirage sighed through all of his vents, causing Hound's plating to shiver in a sympathetic response to the rushing air. "Oh—but I'm already here..." Mirage pulled back, tipping his helm to the side, shifting in ways that shaped the chainmail beautifully. "And I just know that if I left, I would miss you terribly." There was a nakedly honest longing in the underglyphs of that.
Hound, not knowing how to respond, took another sip of energon.
"I know I don't have much to offer," Mirage murmured. "But it's such a big, cruel world out there, and this..." he leaned forward and dropped a kiss on Hound's shoulder. "...is all..." another, closer to Hound's neck joint. "...I have."
Mirage said it so softly, so sadly, that it took Hound aback. Was this—did he believe that? Was that why he’d wanted to play this game, seducing Hound? Did he really think he had nothing better to offer? Was this another of those times where Hound wasn’t paying attention while Mirage walked himself right into something that could hurt him because he thought it was the best option?
It took him a moment to notice Mirage noticing he’d stiffened up, a worried expression creasing that beautiful copper on his bonded’s face. Had he burned some kind of credit trading for that?
“Hound?” Mirage said.
‘You—you know that’s not true, right?” Hound blurted. “Mirage, you have so much to offer—is this something you’re worried about? Should we talk about this?”
Mirage stared at him for another moment, before leaning back in and thumping his helm against Hound’s shoulder. He was shaking slightly, and Hound put down his cube quickly, suddenly afraid he’d made Mirage cry before a laugh wheezed out.
“Hound,” Mirage said. “My love. Darling. Music of my spark.” He was getting into the fancy noble phrases. Hound was in trouble. “I love you very much, but this is not the time.”
“Oh,” Hound said.
“Do you know how long it took me to get into this dress?” Mirage asked, still tinged with hilarity and muffled by Hound’s shoulder.
“Probably a lot longer than it would take for me to help you out of it?” Hound hazarded.
“Correct answer,” Mirage said. “Hold this.”
Hound took Mirage’s fancy crystal drinkware and was distracted for the crucial moment it took Mirage to grab both sides of his helm and drag him into a searing kiss. The copper paint sang against his processor almost as loudly as the rushing of the energon through his tubing.
When they pulled apart, Hound had to take another moment to collect himself long enough to say “Just—just let me put this down. You never finished your ration.”
It took another ninety astroseconds for Mirage to finally stop laughing, which somewhat delayed their combined efforts to get the gown off him. He never quite managed to find his seductive persona again. Hound was okay with that.
Mirage—as Hound was to be informed later—was not.
“We’re trying this again,” Mirage announced, when they were discussing plans for their next off-shift while waiting for a meeting to start. “This time without you stopping to ask about my feelings. It’s—a game, beloved, sweet as you are to be concerned. I don’t want to make you worry about me.”
“Alright,” Hound said, because that seemed slightly more productive than trying to explain he always worried about Mirage. “Do you want a code word, then? So I don’t have to keep asking?”
Mirage looked intrigued by this idea. “Yes…yes. Something distinct.” A flare of mischief stole into his subglyphs. “Perhaps I should call you my lord."
“I’d say I’m flattered, but considering how much judgement I’ve heard you heap on other nobles, I’m not sure I should be,” Hound said, amused despite himself.
Mirage waved this away. “Obviously you’re one actually worthy of the title. Perhaps one of the Guild-lords, rather than a Senator.”
“What Guild?” Hound asked, genuinely curious both about the answer and how far Mirage would take this. He always did have more fun coming up with backstories for mission dossiers.
“I’m not falling for that,” Mirage said. “Does it work, as a phrase?”
“Sure,” said Hound. “So, you call me my lord, I don’t assume you’re saying anything you really mean. Any other rules? Do I need to tell you something secret for it to count?”
Mirage’s posture took on that particularly predatory breed of laconicism that he got during a mission briefing. “Do you have secrets for me to find?”
Hound felt himself grinning. “Well, I guess that’s for me to know and you to find out, right?”
Mirage’s optics lit up, but before he could pursue that as far as he clearly wanted to Bumblebee fell out of the vents with a clang.
“Jazz is running late,” he said. “Ultra Magnus pinned him down about mandatory time off so he said to start without him.”
“We’re all up to date on time off,” Hound said, because payroll and associated data were usually his responsibility. “He shouldn't be that long, should he?”
“All of us except Jazz,” Bumblebee said. “Since the Manganese mission, apparently.”
“Ah,” Mirage said. They all took a moment of silence for the imminent chewing-out their boss was probably undergoing, and then carried on in his absence as they knew he would want. Mirage’s optics kept drifting back to Hound during the meeting in a way that made his plating prickle in an exciting way.
Mirage making good on the promises of his optics took a while, because they all got markedly busier while Jazz was locked out of the base for his mandatory leave. He was still making preparations, which Hound was well aware of, because Mirage kept leaving things around for him to find. Like a tin full of copper paint.
Hound, in the meantime, made his own preparations. Who said Mirage was the only one who could have fun with this?
He walked in one off-shift only for Mirage to appear out of nowhere in his slinky chainmail gown—sans cube, but with copper trailing down his neck in new and tantalizing ways that begged to be pursued.
“My lord,” Mirage purred. “You’re late.”
Hound didn't miss a beat before projecting a hologram over himself in the guise of a particularly obnoxious Guild lord from the Golden Age of Cybertron. The founder of Mirage’s Guild, in fact, whose visage and accomplishments Mirage had bitterly complained to Hound about being forced to memorize in the past.
The sheer outrage on Mirage’s face, and the way he fell into it so immediately from his seductive expression, sent Hound into a laughing fit that continued long past when Mirage beaned him in the helm with a mesh padding. The hologram didn’t survive physical contact and Hound was laughing too hard to project a new one, but that was fine, really. He was pretty sure Mirage wouldn’t have kissed him if he still looked like an ancient mech. Mirage definitely wouldn’t have gone on to…other things.
Even laughing, Hound was happy to reciprocate.
“You,” Mirage said afterwards, when they were settled onto the same recharge berth, “are lucky you’re cute.”
Hound chuckled, which was about all he had the energy left for. They’d both be groggy tomorrow if they didn’t separate into their own berths and energy streams before actually recharging, but that didn’t seem important right now. “Don’t forget, I’m funny, too.”
“You think you’re funny,” Mirage informed him. “My lord,” he added onto the end to make it clear he was teasing. All his vents ran out in a sigh. “And I’m lucky too.” He ran a gentle touch over Hound’s helm. “Even if you are the stubbornest mech ever sparked.”
“We’re sworn to Optimus Prime,” Hound pointed out.
“Hm,” Mirage said, dubiously, and did not concede the point. He sighed again. “Beloved—do you want me to stop?”
“Well,” Hound said, tracing one digit down Mirage’s recently closed spark case. “Clearly not.”
Mirage batted at the wandering hand before catching it up in his own and stroking it. “You keep making jokes."
He almost made another joke, but that seemed like the wrong thing to say, so he thought about it. “You said you’d enjoy it.”
“I enjoy my work. I enjoy you. I thought it would be fun to bring the two together.” Mirage tweaked his digits. “I want you to enjoy it, too. I think you might.”
“Lover…” Hound let out a sigh of his own and worked his hand loose enough to squeeze back. “I love you because I love you. I don’t want you to change for me.”
“I’m not changing. Just playing,” Mirage said, stressing the distinction. “Would it really be so terrible to let me cherish you?”
Hound didn’t know. “Do you cherish all your targets?”
“Briefly. To know them.” Mirage settled down again, his head on Hound’s spark chamber, resting their twined hands to the side. “I’d cherish you. I already do. I just want to show you that.”
Hound rolled that idea around, considering. “Is this how you’d do it in the Towers?”
“I don’t know.” Mirage raised his helm, letting their optics meet. “That was a long time ago. I was a different person, then.” He closed his optics again, bringing his helm back down to the place where their sparks had met, not too long ago. He faded invisible, an old habit, even though they both knew Hound could see him anyways. Especially with the copper still tingling against his senses, sparks snapping between the paint on Mirage’s frame and the bits that had rubbed off onto Hound’s own plating. “Besides. It’s not like I’d had a chance to try, before.”
Hound hummed and leaned down to press a kiss of his own to the top of Mirage’s helm. He always felt somewhat clumsy, doing this, worried that he’d knock his missiles into Mirage’s shoulders. “I’ve never felt about anyone the way I do about you.”
Mirage made an embarrassed vworp, but the way he relaxed his weight was reassuring.
“If you want to keep trying, I’ll keep trying,” Hound promised. “I wasn’t…trying not to. I just thought you’d like a challenge.”
Mirage huffed. “There’s liking a challenge, and then there’s being able to lead crimelords around by the nose and summon sadists with a crook of my finger, but not to distract my own conjunx.”
Hound almost asked if he should be worried about having competition, but he was very sure that would be the wrong thing to say. Instead, he said, “Sweetspark, if I got distracted by you being beautiful, I’d never get anything done.”
Judging by the kiss Mirage gave him, that had been the right thing to say. They never did make it to separate recharge berths.
Life went on. Jazz came back from leave eventually and they got more time off. Mirage went through three tins of copper paint, especially once he’d started holding down Hound to paint him with it, slowly, Hound practiced not being distracting, and letting himself be distracted. And maybe even cherished.
Sometimes, though, he made things harder. Not distracting-Mirage-from-his-self-appointed-task harder. Just…a challenge.
“My lord,” Mirage said, draped over the back of the couch they’d appropriated upon arrival at this base. Not for this purpose, exactly. Incidental to it, maybe. “You’ve barely touched your dinner.”
“Mm,” Hound said, seated on the couch and flipping through a datapad he’d read forty times already. “I’m afraid I’m just not quite hungry tonight. My needs are fulfilled.”
“All of your needs?” Mirage murmured. He moved from hovering over Hound’s shoulder to hovering over Hound’s other shoulder. He wasn’t wearing the dress tonight, but he was wearing the copper, tucked away around his frame in joints, so it was exposed when he shifted. Hound badly wanted to expose it all, but he kept his optics on the datapad. Wouldn’t do to let him know he was winning, after all.
“Well…” Hound considered. Mirage leaned forward, hopeful. “Yes, I believe so. All of my needs.”
“My lord,” Mirage sighed. “You are cruel.” There was a soft sound and Hound looked up to find that Mirage had somehow found a graceful organic flower, and was clenching it between his dentae. “But perhaps, my lord…you are not so cruel you would not consider my needs. Hm?”
Before Hound could respond, the door slid open. He and Mirage both looked up, surprised and off-guard.
Trailbreaker was in the doorway, resetting his optics at them like he wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing. Mirage vanished, his outlier ability muffling the embarrassed vworp Hound had a hunch he was making.
“I can…” Trailbreaker said, clearly trying to figure out what was going on. “…come back later?”
“Do that,” Hound said, in unison with Mirage’s voice.
The door slid shut again. Mirage reappeared, peeking over the top of the couch.
“You could have warned me,” he said. For all that he was clear he enjoyed this game, and unashamed to discuss it when they were both on duty within SpecOps, he disliked sharing it with the population at large.
“I didn’t…notice he was there,” Hound admitted. He tuned out a lot of stimuli, of course, because processing everything his full senses could pick up would overwhelm his processor, but he usually managed to pick up on changes to his immediate environment. Like, say, someone walking down the hallway outside their door.
“Really,” Mirage purred, with entirely too much interest, picking up the game where they had left off. “If not needs, then perhaps you have…desires?”
“I could,” Hound said, and turned off the datapad, matching him squarely. “What do you have to offer?"