Nightbeat had followed up on telling Siren about what life outside the office was like, both at his convenience to recount past events or shortly after new developments unfolded. Siren was consistently awed both by the stories themselves and Nightbeat’s presentation of them. The visit to the Necroworld was his favorite so far, but he couldn’t help feeling like a good chunk of it had been left out—he didn’t complain, though. It seemed pretty personal.

They had been interrupted more than once by blaring alarms and Siren needing to step out for extended amounts of time. He had been expecting to come back to an empty office but Nightbeat had been waiting for him each time. Whenever that happened, his report writing would bleed over into his free time, but it was worth it.

There had been no such visit yet today and it was nearing the end of Siren’s shift. Earlier, he had been conversing with Ultra Magnus via text about Ten—he expressed his concern, and Ultra Magnus had replied that he would look into it, which didn’t fill Siren with much confidence, knowing how slowly the wheels of bureaucracy typically turned—so slowly that laws that were outdated by millions of cycles could be dusted off and exploited by any given cosmic-scale mass murderer looking to avoid punishment.

Siren had seen how much art Ten had made, and how much of it Magnus was the subject of—surely he had to have some idea that it was his biggest fan who was suffering. That was the only hope Siren could hold onto that this would be taken care of, seeing as all he had the power to do was make someone with more authority aware of it.

Now, Siren was very busy staring at the ceiling, studying its design, trying to put himself in the mindset of Nightbeat, who would no doubt find something interesting about it. It was going to take practice before he got on Nightbeat’s level, clearly.

Nightbeat suddenly appeared to spare Siren from boredom. He hung in the doorframe, not committing to the location. “You look busy.”

Siren bolted upright at Nightbeat’s entrance as if he was just caught doing something he shouldn’t be. “I’m not!”

“I don’t know how you manage to stay sane in here. Why isn’t dispatch automated, anyways? If you just had admin duties to take care of it wouldn’t take your entire day.”

“Well, besides the quantum stuff, this ship’s tech is pretty outdated!”

“I know that. What I meant is, why don’t they update it?”

“Not a priority, I guess? Everything’s fully functional, if inconvenient! And it’s not like I haven’t figured out ways to fill my time!” Siren said, pointing out the datapad he had been reading in bits and pieces throughout the day. Whether he liked it or not, he had become something of an expert on Cybertronian novels, most of which were not enjoyable—their cultural imagination had been thoroughly dominated by war and barely veiled allegories for it.

Nightbeat looked around the room on the off chance that simple observation could give him the answer he was looking for.

When it was obvious that the room’s appearance didn’t speak to him, he started thinking of other solutions, which Siren picked up on. “Oh, you’ve got that look! What’re you gonna do?”

“Nothing you’ll be jealous of, I’m just going to ask Rodimus about it later. I don’t know how you can stand not knowing.”

“Well, the truth isn’t always pretty…”

“But it might reveal the solution, if there is one.”

On that, Siren was sold. What he wouldn’t give to find a way out.

“Anyways, none of that is why I’m here. Tell me you’re not busy tonight.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m not!”

“Perfect. Can I take you on a date?”

Nightbeat said it so casually that it almost didn’t register, and once it did, it sounded too good to be true. “A date?! You like me?” Siren asked. He had had a feeling that was the case but Nightbeat was so enigmatic he couldn’t have been sure. “Since when?”

“The assembly. How could I not when you asked me so many questions so shamelessly? Now, answer my question, please.”

“Oh! Yes! Absolutely! Do you mean just hanging out this time? I would have figured you’d want to go investigate something again!”

Nightbeat hung his head but quickly brought it back up. “It is always that with me, you're right, but you’re what’s got me curious this time.”

Maybe Nightbeat was onto something with the whole mystery shtick—it felt deeply flattering to be an object of intrigue. “You sure know how to make a guy feel special!”

“I know how to make most people feel most things. Anyways, pick somewhere.”

“Swerve’s?”

“The bar’s all anyone ever suggests.” Nightbeat shook his head. For as much as Swerve going missing had bothered him, he sure wasn’t interested in taking advantage of his services now that he was back. “I hate that place. I think I’ve been there twice the entire time I’ve lived here. Bars are good if they’re on alien worlds—you catch wind of interesting people and their interesting problems that need solving. But here, it’s just a cesspool of regulars, complaining about the same things, getting too wasted to figure out solutions to said problems, ad infinitum. Maybe something will come up occasionally, but it’s not generally worth it. I get that there are limited options when we're not docked somewhere, but we can get more creative than that.”

Siren looked away, dejected. If Nightbeat had just said he didn’t like it, that would have been one thing, but he had to go and insult where he spent most of his free time.

“Okay, what did I do?” Nightbeat asked, clueless.

“It’s just—well, I really like it there!”

“The loudest bot likes the loudest place. I should have known.”

“Exactly! No noise complaints for me if I can help it!”

“Okay, but I’m still not a fan of crowds… especially not if they distract me from you. How about Mirage’s?”

“What, ‘Visages’? I thought it was closed cause he left!”

“Yes, that’s the idea. Soundproofed neutral ground and plenty of privacy—the upper decks don’t get much traffic. You have access for inspections and the like, right?”

Siren supposed he did. “Okay, ‘Visages’ is good, but I don’t want to like, steal from him, though!”

“We won’t, I’ll bring something. What will it be?”

“Just your typical mid-grade is what I usually get!”

“Got it. Meet me there when you’re done here.” Nightbeat said and was off.

Siren was too excited to keep to himself. He called Hosehead—who didn’t pick up. Only then did Siren remember that he mentioned being busy helping Crosscut work on set pieces in Hoist’s workshop. He sent an onslaught of messages instead, breaking up their chatlog’s milieu of occasional observations about things that irritated or amused with some very, very good news. When it was finally time, he took a sigh of relief, then another to prepare himself. He drove off and was there sooner than Nightbeat had apparently expected, given that he had just walked up himself with their two drinks in hand. Siren transformed to full height and walked the last few paces to the door.

“Nice alt mode,” Nightbeat remarked, studying Siren’s form to determine what went where.

“I bet you’re one to talk!” Siren said as he undid the door. He stepped aside, motioned for Nightbeat to enter first, and shut the door behind them.

“It might be a while before you see that side of me. I prefer walking to driving—more opportunities to spot what’s interesting.”

Seeing “Visages” during its off-hours really cemented how little Siren cared for the infrastructure of a bar as opposed to the company it afforded, especially with nothing but their biolights illuminating it for the moment (though Nightbeat was clearly used to fishing around in the dark). It may as well have been a well-decorated lecture hall. But so long as he was with Nightbeat, anywhere was fine.

As he searched for the light switch while resorting to the headlights under his knees, Nightbeat tried to get the sound system running. The room flushed neon at the same time that it became filled with sparse, unobtrusive background music. It seemed ready to serve the whole ship, not just them.

Nightbeat grabbed a chair with a low table and set the drinks he’d gotten for them on it—standard mid-grade, as instructed. Someone else might have splurged for something fancier, especially considering that Nightbeat had gotten himself something much nicer, but he honored his request exactly. Siren sat on the edge of the sofa adjacent to Nightbeat’s chair and claimed his drink.

“So.” Nightbeat began, fine-tuning his seating as he spoke. “Tell me what you've been up to for the last few million years.”

“Where do I start?” Siren crossed his arms and leaned back, taking in the neon-striped ceiling. “I always liked emergency services and I got a lot of practice in early on cause the Sonic Canyons where I'm from are super industrial and pretty accident-prone, so that’s what I aimed for whenever I could, mostly search and rescue. What about you? It’s hard to picture you as anything but a detective!”

“Yes, it’s just how I am. I’m lucky that others consider it a legitimate occupation. I've squeezed some odd jobs in here and there, too, but it's all been in the name of honing my detection skills. And if I wanted to know any of what you just told me, I could've just read your file.”

“Did you?”

“I‘ve read everyone’s. Tell me something that’s not in there. Like, has anyone else on board caught your eye?”

“Ha, I read everyone’s, too! Gotta pass the time somehow. But it only covers the Autobot timeframe, so I had to ask. Anyways, not until Thunderclash showed up! But that’s not going anywhere. I tried to ask him out, but… he kinda didn’t know how to respond? It seemed like no one actually goes that far.” After some hesitation masked by intaking his drink, he continued. “And yourself…?”

“No one.”

“Cool. I mean—nevermind. How about friends?”

“A few—Nautica. Skids. Chromedome. Rodimus.”

“Wow, really? No wonder you can just ask Rodimus why the office’s like that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you anywhere near some of them! You must be the cool, distant type—can’t rely on you for a night on the town, but if there’s a real problem, you’re there! I guess I shouldn’t have taken it personally when you ghosted me earlier!”

“…Correct,” Nightbeat said, not as used to having accurate assumptions made about him as he was making them about other people. “Your turn. Who’s lucky enough to call Siren their friend?”

“Oh, you know, kind of everyone!”

“I’m gonna need names.”

Siren thought about it for a while. He knew how strongly Nightbeat felt about Nautica and assumed that everyone else he mentioned must be of a similar caliber, so his answer should follow that scale, too. “Well, there’s Hosehead… ”

Nightbeat waited. “Just Hosehead?”

“No! It’s just—well, I’m sort of the opposite of you, I guess, I’m just good for hang-outs! I can’t blame people for not wanting to spend a lot of time with me, have you heard me?”

“What, your volume?”

“Yes, my—” Siren said, at first dumbfounded that Nightbeat wasn’t sure of his massive, glaring flaw, then that Nightbeat evidentially didn’t view it as front and center. “Does it not bother you?”

“Most people speaking bothers me. Even Nautica. I want to hear what she has to say, but she’s so high pitched and almost always excited, it gets grating. You’re hardly a special case.”

Siren just stared at him. He didn’t know whether to be insulted or relieved.

“Is this a sensitive subject?”

“Uh, kind of! Do you have any idea what it’s like to never have anyone get too close because they don’t want to deal with you? Or to get kicked out of places over something you can’t control?!”

“Yes.”

Siren had been fully prepared to lecture Nightbeat, but that response gave him pause. Even with just one word, he knew without a doubt that while their causes may have been different, they felt the same effects. It was a rare moment of solidarity. He couldn’t be too mad.

“I’m sorry, Siren. I should’ve phrased that more gently. You certainly don’t let on that it gets to you.”

Siren cracked a smile. “Do you really live like that? Just constantly annoyed by everyone?”

Nightbeat gave a shrug of confirmation, then pivoted back to the topic they’d strayed from. “It bothers you, doesn’t it? Not having enough true friends?”

Siren surprised himself with how quick he was to admit to it.

“I think I can help with that.”

First, he said he can barely stand to listen to him talk, then he offered to invest no small amount of time and energy into their relationship? It started to sink in that Nightbeat worked in deeply mysterious and equally confusing ways. “That…would be great. Really great. Do you ever wish you had more close friends?”

“Mystery is the only thing I’m not picky with.” Nightbeat raised his glass to reinforce his point—there was an extremely narrow range of flavors he tolerated (unless, of course, he encountered one he hadn’t tried before—but it was statistically unlikely that he’d end up wanting more). “But that’s not to say casual friends don’t have their merits, for most people. You clearly enjoy yourself around them. Do you ever stop? I get the impression that you go out pretty much every night, even after working all day.”

“Not really! The fact that work doesn't usually take much out of me doesn’t help, either. I just have so much energy, it’s gotta go somewhere, right?”

“I suppose that’s why your career path suits you. No room for lethargy in that field.”

“I guess so! It helps that I popped out of the ground with a hell of a fight response, too!”

Nightbeat seemed glad that Siren had returned to form from their previous topic. They continued distilling down two very long and sometimes very complicated histories for hours on end. They realized that there had been a handful of instances where they had been in the same place at the same time for different reasons, and each left that night with a fuller understanding of what had transpired then. But, for as enjoyable a conversation as it was proving to be, conversing could only get them so far.

“Do you like music?” Siren asked, fidgeting with his empty glass.

“Not particularly.”

“How about dancing?”

“No. What kind of person doesn’t like music but does like dancing…?”

“I don’t know, you, maybe? Have you ever danced with a partner?” Siren asked, standing and extending his hand. Nightbeat seemed unreceptive to the offer. “Come on, have you?”

“No.”

“Then isn’t whether you like it a bit of a mystery?”

Nightbeat hung his head in defeat. It was all too easy to get him to try new things by framing it as another piece in the great unknown, and Siren had been quick to think of that technique. He reached out his hand to meet Siren’s and they stepped away from the seating arrangement. “I have to warn you, I’m completely abysmal at this.”

“Ha! I’m not that great either, but it’s still fun!”

Siren taught him a simple routine, and Nightbeat immediately understood how it should be executed, but actually managing to do it was easier said than done.

Siren tried to be patient, but eventually, Nightbeat’s ineptitude got to him, so he took the reigns, holding him close and trying to give him physical guidance. He wished he could take pleasure in their proximity, to tune out the rest of the world and just feel the warmth emanating from him and their chest vents cycling into each other, but Nightbeat’s complete lack of rhythm was just too distracting.

Nightbeat misstepped onto one of Siren’s boots, throwing him off even more than he already had been. Stumbling apart and regaining his footing, Nightbeat called it off. “Okay, I can now officially say I’m not a fan.”

“Yeah, me either. I usually do something more like this…” Siren thrashed around aimlessly to the predictable and mid-tempo soundtrack. “…but I didn’t think you’d go for that.”

“A correct assumption.” Nightbeat laughed. “But whatever that is, it suits you.”

An alarm on Siren’s communicator went off, and he was quick to silence it. “Shit, I’ve gotta turn in soon. But this was really great!”

“Turning in this late?” Nightbeat checked the time—it was nearly morning. “Is that typical for you?”

“Oh, yeah! I know picking a day or two to rest up is the hot thing these days but a little each night is better for me cause I’ve got stuff to do every single day! Most of the staff do it that way, actually!”

“Interesting. Very interesting…”

“Don’t get any ideas.” Siren switched the music off. “There’s always some security patrol going on!”

“Noted. Still interesting.”

Siren shot him a look that said, “you can’t visit me from the brig.” Nightbeat smiled back like he was just joking, but he most certainly wasn’t.

It didn’t take long to pick up after themselves and leave the place how they had found it. Nightbeat walked out into the hall and Siren turned the lights off behind them. Just a moment ago it had felt effortless to talk to each other, but now all they seemed capable of was staring. Even though they had just spent most of the night getting better acquainted, it somehow felt like they’d always known each other, but suddenly, the gravity that they truly were strangers sunk in.

They couldn’t let it stay that way.

Nightbeat closed the gap between them and pulled Siren’s head towards his. First kisses usually felt awkward and forced, because they were. Testing the waters for potential romance at an early point in any friendship was Cybertronian protocol. But this was different. Siren felt perfectly at ease as Nightbeat ran his thumbs over the vents on his cheek guards.

Siren couldn’t stand to wait even a few seconds and kissed him first. He stopped sooner than he truly wanted to, not wanting to smother him. Nightbeat pulled him back and continued.

The alarm went off again. “Okay, I’ve really got to go! But that was—uh, you—”

“Let’s do this again sometime.”

“Yes! Definitely! Good night, Nightbeat!”

Once he made it home and his head hit the bed, he was out fast, more content than he had been in a long while. When he woke, he saw that Hosehead had gotten around to replying. Sorry I didn’t see this until now, I was in the crafting zone!! (attached was a process picture—blurry, as usual. How was Siren supposed to compliment that when he wasn’t even sure what it was?) So? How’d it go?

Siren scrolled up. His past self had been right to be so excited. He would have found it hard to believe last night really happened if not for the evidence right in front of him.

I’m gonna need you to come hit me in the head w a 2x4 because i’m PRETTY sure i’m STILL dreaming ✧