At first, he’s worried it’s a side effect of the many, many surgeries he’s undergone in the past month. Then, he thinks it’s panic. Finally, after a week of walking around with a crushing pit in his chest, right beneath his newly steel-plated sternum, he realizes it’s Sunstreaker. Rather, it’s the lack of Sunstreaker. Being apart from him aches, and when he reaches for the words to describe it, all he can come up with is that it feels the same way his crush on his first girlfriend did, so when Sunstreaker asks, “Do you miss it?” Hunter’s breath catches in his throat.
He’s stretched out on the nest of blankets and pillows that’s become his spot in Sunstreaker’s berth, head and shoulders cradled in one of Sunstreaker’s massive hands. Sunstreaker’s on his side next to him, curled forward so Hunter’s surrounded on all sides by metal, Sunstreaker and the wall. “What do you mean?” he asks even though he’s certain he already knows.
Sunstreaker’s optics are at half their usual brightness, and when he runs his fingers through Hunter’s hair, Hunter can hear the snap of static electricity.
“Being fused. Being us.”
Hunter hardly dares to breathe. “Yes. All the time.”
Sunstreaker’s engine kicks up a notch. “Me, too.” Hunter shifts against his hand, hot all over and not quite sure why he’s getting hard. There’s nothing sexual about this, at least nothing recognizable as human sexuality, and yet…
Sunstreaker’s other hand trails up his body and pauses at the hem of his tee shirt. “There’s a way to… Do you trust me?”
Sunstreaker’s hand is warm even through the fabric. It’s all Hunter can think about, all he can feel. It’s a tipsy, cottony thing, all this confused lust. “Yes,” he pants. “Yeah, yes, do it.” He’s not sure what he’s agreeing to, but he’s sure he’ll die if he doesn’t get it.
Sunstreaker lifts the thin fabric of Hunter’s shirt with one finger. He drags his finger slowly upwards, pulling it up until it’s bunched around Hunter’s collar and the new ports on his chest are exposed. Sunstreaker’s fingertip catches on his nipple. He gasps and arches into the touch and Sunstreaker makes a soft, interested noise. Hunter’s body is as alien to him as his is to Hunter. The first time, Hunter thinks, and his eyes roll back as Sunstreaker rubs his chest gently. Then, that finger slips down to touch one of the ports. It’s insensate, and Hunter’s about to tell Sunstreaker as much, but then the hand supporting his head is gone and he falls back against the pillows as Sunstreaker reaches for something on his own body. A cover snaps open, and Sunstreaker unspools a length of wire with a head that bears a shocking resemblance to Hunter’s ports.
Sure enough, when Sunstreaker slips it into the leftmost port, it slides home with a satisfying click Hunter can feel everywhere. That’s all that happens, though, and for a moment, he’s confused and a bit disappointed. Then, Sunstreaker whispers, “Ready?” Hunter nods, and then there’s a virtual knock on that aching part of him and he opens and Sunstreaker steps inside and Sunstreaker and Hunter are Sunstreaker-and-Hunter again.
Distantly, he’s aware of his body and how it’s arching off the berth, burning with an arousal so foreign to him it hardly registers as such. He’s hard, so hard he thinks a single touch might set him off, but more than that he feels an energy crackling through him, filling every fissure in his incomplete body.
Sunstreaker, he sends desperately into the void of Sunstreaker-and-Hunter between and around them. Sunstreaker, fuck.
There’s a pulse of something, a swelling of the space they share, and Hunter’s overcome. Somehow, he finds the strength to grab Sunstreaker’s finger and hold on for dear life. Sunstreaker’s voice echoes between them just like Hunter’s own. Yeah, he says, and he sounds almost as wrecked. The first time is always intense.
Hunter wants to say something in response, but all that comes out is a strangled moan. He’s so close, suspended on what feels like a never-ending edge. All he can do is cling to Sunstreaker and gasp for breath and pray this lasts forever.
Hunter, Sunstreaker pushes at him, and Hunter knows exactly how desperate and needy he’s feeling because he is Sunstreaker and Sunstreaker is him. They’re bound again, reveling in it, for the first time experiencing their unity in safety. There’s time to linger, no running for their collective lives (life?), just pleasure in fitting together.
They’re not dissolved. There’s still a clear Hunter, a clear Sunstreaker, a clear Sunstreaker-and-Hunter, but their edges bleed together. Several things are true of the three of them, none less than the next, and when Sunstreaker finally figures out where to put his fingers for Hunter to grind on, both of them sob with the pleasure of it. Sunstreaker’s touching himself, too, or both of them are touching him. The result is the same, fingers through transformation seams and snapping electricity and close, close, so close.
With a joint cry, Sunstreaker’s charge peaks and Hunter’s cock throbs and they fall over their own edges and into each other. Hunter’s practically convulsing and Sunstreaker’s not doing much better, charge racing along the cables between them and pulling Hunter along. It’s nothing he was capable of feeling before, a pleasure of combination, greater in scope than he alone could contain. Hunter blacks out.
He comes around once again laying against Sunstreaker’s hand, cradled to his chest, still linked together by that thin cord. So strange, they think, to have so much riding on a little connection like that. Then, the thought of another separation hits them, and they cry together. Hunter presses a kiss to the bridge of Sunstreaker’s nose and gets an affectionate nuzzle in return, enough to move his whole body. Contentment and completion have them dazed, too hazy to do more than curl closer together and rest in their shared present.