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archie-sunshine · 6 months

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

Chapter 6: In Which Robots are Poorly Constructed for the Purposes of Doing Yoga

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.

Other Chapters Here! Read on AO3 Here!

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Author's Notes: THIS! IS! MY! FAVOURITE! CHAPTER! YET! or at least- well of the ones posted so far. this whole chapter is DESPERATELY silly, read into it whichever ships you so desire

CHAPTER TAGS: robots doing yoga, suggestively looking at your friends (whirl's optics wander a bit), comedy, slapstick, tailgate is a little old man with little old man joints, continuing fluff and cutesiness !

A few more cycles had passed. Whirl had insisted he needed time to get his hab suite in order and cleared out to move, but really, he was mostly just nervous. It was a big step, surely it was an intrusion, even if the couple didn’t know yet how he might sour their home with his presence. He tiptoed around the edge of their circle, even as they dragged him closer to them.

Whirl was in his hab suite, quietly packing junk into crates, as he had been for a few hours now. It gave him something to do at least, rather than carving more graffiti into the walls.

He perked up briefly as a comm came through.

TG: New club this afternoon, meet in the shuttle hangar in 4 hours! -Tailgate

Whirl breathed out in amusement.

W: Sure, I’ll be there.

The hangar was abuzz with movement, a small group of bots gathered around. Whirl hesitated to join the crowd. There were Cyclonus and Tailgate, standing near the edge of the group, Rewind-assumedly there to record- then there was Rodimus, and Ratchet(surprisingly) and Velocity again(less surprising) and then, hulking over the rest of them was fragging Megatron. Whirl had assumed- clearly incorrectly- that of those in charge of the ship Megatron would have the least patience or time or care for this whole CBEI business.

Tailgate glanced around, finally noticing Whirl and waving him over. He trotted over to them, glancing over Cyclonus’s shoulder.

“-afety purposes, we’re going to be using some of these maintenance magnetizers, so that we’re able to do our cyber-yoga class under the stars on the hull of the ship!” Drift explained cheerfully. Ah, so that's why Ratchet was attending.

Whirl’s optic scrunched. He leaned a bit further into Cyclonus to mumble in his audial. “Whats a cyber-yoga?”

“It’s a mixture of stretching and meditation, I believe. Some sort of ancient technique to loosen the joints and pistons to promote greater nanite recovery and flexibility.” He explained under his breath.

“And- we’re doing it on the outside of the ship? Why?” Whirl probed.

“Have you seen how large some of the bots who signed up are? They’d collapse under the ship’s false gravity.” Cyclonus glanced very briefly at Megatron.

“Oh primus- is this one of those stupid anti-grav aerobic class things for oldies?” Whirl groaned. “Come on, I can see this for Tailgate’s ancient aft, but, us-?” Whirl jolted as Tailgate playfully punched him in the leg, giving him an exaggerated look of offense.

“It’s good for you!” Tailgate hissed.

Whirl leaned down patronizingly, his helm breaching Tailgate’s personal bubble. “Yea, it’s great for you though, old brittle bolts- Ow!” Whirl jumped when Cyclonus began to pinch at one of his blades.

“Now, let's all get outfitted with our magnetizers, and it’ll be a brief space walk to the top of the hull for some relaxing cyber-yoga!” Drift said cheerfully, beginning to hand out magnetizers to the crowd.

“-Now bring your left leg over the right and up towards your pelvis… and youre going to engage your restarluesus pistons… and just lower into the pose.” If Drift had one thing going for him, his flexibility was it.

Whirl was no slouch in the flexibility department either, though his… shall we say unique frame shape made it a challenge to mimic the pose Drift was doing.

He was standing on his servos, holding tightly onto the hand held magnetizers he’d instructed the group to connect to the hull, right leg raised to a perfect toe point, left with its heel strut jammed directly east of his modesty panel.

Whirl glanced around. Ratchet was unsurprisingly struggling a bit. His joints were having a hard time extending to the same poise as his Conjunx. Velocity seemed to be doing just fine, with her more agile frame mirroring Drift’s pose with only a slight wobble as she struggled to stay steady. Megatron was a different story. His faceplate was set in an intense glare, which would have been intimidating were he not swaying with the effort to keep his frame straight with his left pede flailing to find purchase somewhere near his knee. Rodimus was also doing well, though his form was suffering as he quivered in an attempt not to laugh at his co-captain's struggling.

“Rodimus-” Megatron hissed at him.

Rodimus snorted and wheezed, cheeks puffing with strain at the display. “Nothing- nothing you're doing great, Megs-”

Whirl turned his attention to Cyclonus and Tailgate. Cyclonus was doing decently as well, though his bulkier frame made flexibility a struggle for him. Whirl inspected his form, definitely not… letting his optic linger on Cyclonus’s aft… not even for a moment. He turned his attention away quickly.

Tailgate- Oh, Tailgate was really trying his best. He’d gotten into the position, it was the lowering part he was having trouble with. His digits were so tight around the handles of the magnetizers he was worried the things might break off. He pulled himself, straining, down into the sort of twisted up pushup that Drift had instructed, not struggling for lack of strength, but rather for the strain of his old pistons.

“Hhhnnnn…. I’m too spry- and youthful- of mind and spirit- for this-!” Tailgate gritted out quietly, making Whirl and Cyclonus chuckle.

“Very good! Ok, now release the pose.” Drift instructed.

A chorus of relieved groans went up across the crowd.

“Now we’re going to do something a little more challenging.”

A chorus of pained groans went up across the crowd.

“Now for this position you’re going to connect the magnetizers on your pedes to the hull…” Drift gracefully brought his legs down, pausing for the chorus of clunks and zaps that signaled his club was not going to go flying off into space. “And for this one, I challenge you to give your spinal strut as deep a stretch as you can!” He began to slowly curve his frame backwards, servos making contact with the hull in a back bend- and- oh primus.

“COME ON- YOU’RE JUST SHOWING OFF NOW!” Ratchet barked from the back of the crowd, his hands still groping around for the hull as Drift nestled his helm between his own ankles as he wrapped his digits around them.

Whirl awkwardly began to mirror the pose, catching a glimpse of Tailgate ineffectually dropping into a weak crab walk and Cyclonus gritting his dentas at the strain in his back. Whirl did his best to not make a dirty joke about Cyclonus’s face being so close to his modesty panel.

“Woah there, take me out for a drink first.” Whirl snickered. Okay so his best was rarely good enough, sue him.

“You’re- so immature…” Cyclonus grunted out, pushing his abdomen upwards to further stretch his back strut.

Tailgate’s giggle was interrupted by a sharp wince as something in his frame popped. “Oh- Ow- OW-!”

Tailgate flailed a servo around in the air. “P-Pause- Time out- time out!” Cyclonus and Whirl quickly abandoned their poses to crowd worriedly around him.

“DRIFT-!” Cyclonus shouted, motioning panickedly at his sparkmate.

Drift unpretzeled himself quickly, rushing over to his side. “Oh- what is it- AH!” Drift grimaced as he noted the shifted panels that had locked the minibot’s abdomen in place with his back arched. “Oh Primus- Great effort, Tailgate, really good job pushing yourself- um- this might feel weird.”

“Itsfinepleasehelp-” Tailgate whined, the reedy noise breaking into a shriek as Drift brought his elbow joint right down on the disjointed plating. It set back into place with another pop. Drift rubbed at the little dent he’d left with his thumb. He frowned at the paint transfer he’d left. Ratchet balked at his conjunx’s flagrant and untrained plating reset technique with absolute horror.

“Sorry… Just go a bit easier on yourself, okay Tailgate?” He apologized, awkwardly chuckling as Tailgate flattened himself despondently on the hull of the ship.

“Thaaaanks Driiiift….” Tailgate wheezed, giving him a thumbs up. Drift returned the gesture with one of his own.

“Okay-! Uhm, everyone alright to continue?” He posed to the group. A mild, affirmative murmur rippled through the bots gathered.

Tailgate popped back upright, wheeling his arms in wide circles for a second to regain balance.

“Try not to push yourself, TG.” Whirl teased, bumping his shoulder with his servo and snickering as his frame swayed in the antigravity. “There’s precious few of us that can nab you if you go spinning off into space.”

“And if Ratchet has to watch Drift perform impromptu chiropracty on me again he might blow a gasket.” Tailgate whispered, suppressing a giggle and bumping Whirls hip to wobble him in return.

Whirl snickered again, bumping Tailgate back a bit harder.

Tailgate returned in suit, just a bit too hard as Whirl bobbed almost all the way back on his aft before floating back up into place. The two of them giggled.

Whirl held his vents with strain as he fumbled around for the tip of his pede. He had made connection with the tips of his claws, but was still trying to nab it fully to bring it into the right position.

“And with your other servo, you’re going to want to bring it all the way down to the ground, I encourage you to try as best you can to flatten your palm against it, but if not, just the tips of your digits touching is fine!” Drift instructed, no strain in his voice as his pede made near contact with his massive finials.

Cyclonus had caught hold of his own pede, and had bowed his back out to a decent simulacrum of Drift’s position. Tailgate was having more trouble extending his back strut, but with his longer pede, and some gentle coaxing from Cyclonus’s free servo, he’d managed to get close to the right position.

Whirl was happy for them and their success. It would have been stellar, however, if their afts weren’t both in his face. His optic darted around awkwardly, attempting to not focus on Cyclonus’s blocky, powerful thighs, and Tailgate’s tight little hip tires. He could see tender bits of protoform between their joints, soft and vulnerable from the way their plating stretched apart.

No, bad Whirl, bad. He trained his optic safely on the ground next to his other claw as he finally grabbed hold of his ankle. Had Tailgate always had such a nice aft? Had Cyclonus? What the frag was he even thinking about, it wasn’t even remotely okay to be having thoughts like this, about a happily conjunxed couple of all things.

“Alright, and bring your pede down, and we’re going to lower into downward facing cyber-dog…” Drift explained, expelling a slow, relaxed vent.

Okay this was getting fully unfair. The couple planted their pedes and- well you get the picture.

Whirl glanced around, taking stock of literally anything else when he heard a well timed ‘zzzzZZTHONK!’ from his left, followed closely by an indignant ‘ARE YOU FRAGGING KIDDING ME-!!?’ from Rodimus.

He looked over, optic widening and laughter beginning to quickly bubble up as he found Megatron’s pede magnetized to Rodimus’s chassis.

“You should have kept a further distance, Rodimus-” Megatron observed, lightly wiggling his leg and dragging Rodimus around with him, who had begun to yank and tug at the larger bot’s leg.

“OH- OH! OH so its- It’s my fault that your stupid slagging magnetizers are- STOP FRAGGING MOVING!” He snarled, clawing at the magnetizer on Megatron’s pede.

“AH- Stop- You can just- RODIMUS!” Megatron boomed, again attempting to shake Rodimus’s servos off his pede. The smaller’s helm bobbed back and forth with the force of the shake, but Rodimus’s digits held firm in their attempt to rip the magnetizer off his plating.

The group had begun to laugh at their co captains’ predicament, albeit stifled and attempted to keep under wraps- save for Whirl, who was cackling to a truly hysteric degree.

“Rodders- Roddy- RODIMUS-” Drift tried, beginning to walk over to him. “You can just- Stop- Hey- STOP-!” He smacked at Rodimus’s hands.

“NO KEEP DOING IT, RODDERS, YOU’RE GONNA GET IT EVENTUALLY!” Whirl called.

“Keep shaking your leg, Captain, he’ll come off I promise!” Rewind added from his perch on a protruding bit of hull, very obviously zooming in on the captains’ situation.

“YOU WILL BE DELETING THIS FOOTAGE.” Megatron demanded, abandoning his attempt to kick Rodimus off in favour of bringing his pede up so he could reach the magnetizer himself. A loud CLUNK echoed between the pair as Rodimus’s helm bounced off of Megatron’s aft.

The group roared with laughter as Rodimus wailed in horrific embarrassment.

“Where’s the- grh- where’s the stupid-” Megatron grunted, pawing at the magnetizer blindly.

“Alright- ALRIGHT- Megatron, just put your leg out- I’ll-” Drift intervened, grabbing the side of Rodimus’s head and prying their two frames apart- or as apart as he could with Megatron’s pede attached to Rodimus’s chassis. He sighed, rolling his optics and beginning to carefully prod around for the magnetizer’s off switch.

“If I hear about anyone seeing that footage, you’re DEAD, Rewind!” Rodimus growled, pointing an accusatory digit at the minibot as he laughed and zoomed further in on the pede stuck to him.

“Where is the- primus, I knew this bigger model was old but this is complete- AH! Is this it?” Drift prodded a digit into a button on the side and Megatron’s pede came free… leaving the magnetizer attached directly to the middle of Rodimus’s chassis.

Whirl continued to giggle before it crumbled into a hacking chuff from his vents.

Rodimus gave Drift an icy look. Drift bit back a smile, forcing himself not to make eye contact with him. “A-Alright uhm, It looks like we’re going to be uh-” He took a steadying vent as Rodimus began to fumble for a demagnetizing button. “We’re gonna be cutting this meeting short! Thanks so much for coming and- um, I’ll keep all of you posted on when we meet next!” He said with a broad grin, clapping his servos together.

“And you promise you got all of it?” Whirl whispered, frame practically jittering with malicious glee.

“From the moment that the magnetizer made contact, all the way to Megatron having to be dragged back to the hangar like an indignant balloon.” Rewind confirmed with a nod. “I even caught a bit of Ratchet and Velocity attempting to scrape the magnetizer off once they figured out it was on the fritz.”

Whirl cackled evilly, hopping from pede to pede. “You’ve gotta comm me that- hell, you’ve gotta give me a hard copy of that so I can carry it to my grave.”

“I’ll see what I can do…” Rewind mused coyly.

“Do you think Rod’ was really serious about the consequences of spreading that around?” Tailgate asked.

“Oh, no chance, he’d probably make a speech about it though. Maybe put him in the brig for like a week, or on riveting duty.” Whirl counted the options for punishment in his processor, leaning his arm on Tailgate’s helm and tapping out the tally on his fore-helm.

“Or have you make a formal apology, in front of everyone, perhaps.” Cyclonus added. “Or if he was adamant enough he’d likely want to cover it up before it got that far.”

“He can’t silence me, I know my rights.” Rewind laughed. “I gotta get back to my hab though.” He sighed, stretching his arms up and folding his servos behind his helm. “All this recording is tiring me out, I need a long recharge. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, know that it's because Rodimus placed a hit on me.”

The group laughed, trading goodbyes with Rewind before the remaining bots turned to their- now shared- hallway.

For a while they enjoyed the comfortable silence, Cyclonus hand in hand with Tailgate, Whirl keeping a safe meter wide distance between them.

“So, Whirl,” Cyclonus began. “Shall we begin moving your belongings to the unit soon?”

Whirl stiffened a bit. Scrap, he’d hoped he didn’t have to think about that again today. It wasn’t that he was dragging his pedes because he didn’t want to move in- he just… It was hard to think about taking a step that big. Giving up his privacy, for what? Because they’d taken pity on him? It was weak of him, it was foolish and soft.

He shook his helm. “Yeah- yeah, I’ll get to it soon, don’t worry.” he thought for a moment. “Where am I squeezing in anyway? You bots gotta reconfigure another suite for me?”

The two of them glanced at one another awkwardly.

“Well- It’s not um-” Tailgate started.

“You wouldn’t be-” Cyclonus stammered.

“There was already-” “A full suite was too much for a berthroom-”

“Way too much, felt kinda greedy-”

“It was going to be- erm-”

“It was going to be an office!” Tailgate finished, faceplate flushed as he tapped his index digits together. “But- y’know, we don’t mind not having an office… it can be your room-”

Whirl squinted at them, examining their avoidant body language… their faceplates flushed with energon.

Did they really make a room for him without even confirming if he’d move in?

“Alriiiiiight….. Cool…” Whirl murmured suspiciously.

No… No they wouldn’t have done that.

Primus’s spike, they really did it, the crazy bastards.

The fields radiating off the two were incredibly tense, like they were holding their vents waiting for Whirl to turn on his heel-struts and walk away never to be seen again.

The room- the ‘office’ the couple had put together had a desk, a few varying chairs, a few shelves, a filing cabinet, a wide window across the back wall, and- of course, as was standard in any office- a recharge slab. For sure, an office, you know, the place you recharge in. The area specifically designated for recharging. The office.

Whirl put his servos on his hips, swinging his helm around to face the couple. “Great office fellas. It’s a shame to move in and interrupt the immaculate office like nature of the room. You must be devastated to no longer have use of this office.”

“It would have made a great office, yes.” Cyclonus agreed. “It’s a shame to give it up.”

“Don’t worry, Whirl, we think the office was a worthy sacrifice.” Tailgate nodded solemnly.

Whirl snickered under his breath. “I’ll put it to good use… Thanks.”

He stepped inside, glancing around one more time and letting himself relax. “I think I’ll… turn in early. Give the ol’ office berth a spin.” He walked forwards, sitting on the edge of the slab. The couple got the hint, nodding and giving thumbs ups.

“Just let us know if you need anything!” Tailgate said, before stepping back and letting the door slide shut.

Whirl watched the door for a long klik, before slowly leaning his frame back flat on the berth. He expected that feeling to leave him again, returning him to the familiar numb chill that reached him in the nights he spent alone in his hab suite.

It never left, though it faded to equilibrium, leaving the mech relaxed and at peace. He let his vents slow, cycled his processor down as he prepared for recharge.

His optic was about to go offline when he received a ping.

R: Supply run tomorrow, you’re on the team with CY, TG, BS, FA, UM and me. See you at the shuttle.

Whirl’s processor shot back online as he sat up. Supply run. Something was HAPPENING. He was practically vibrating with excitement for a moment, before a stubborn, foreign thought wormed its way to the front of his processor.

But that might be dangerous

Of course it was dangerous, that was why he NEEDED to go… but… He shook his helm, going back to resting. What was he thinking, it was just a normal supply run, those two had faced down against tyrants and monsters and the fucking DJD for primus’ sake. They’d be fine.

… He’d make sure they were fine.

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